What is work-life balance, exactly? And how do you achieve it? Usually you’ll come up with one of two answers: either a prescriptive map of what work-life balance should look like (complete with pie-charts and activity checklists), or more likely these days… “Work-life balance is a myth.” It doesn’t exist.…
Burnt Out at Work But Can’t Pull Back? How to Know How Much is Enough
When you’re burnt out at work, conventional wisdom says to pull back so that you can recover. I just wrote a series called The Busy Season Survival Guide that ended with a post about Rest and Recovery for when you’re starting to feel burnt out, but you still have to…
Want to Overcome Overwhelm? Your Hobby is the Key!
Yup – if you’re facing overwhelm, do one more thing. Make it a hobby, preferably something you really love. Something that can get you into “flow”, or something you’re really proud of, or something that has meaning to you. Something that you’d do for free. Keep it low-stakes and low-pressure. …
How to Beat Busy Season Burnout (…or Not)
Holy smokes, what just happened? Come back to early January with me. We’d just come off the holidays, and my work-life balance was feeling on-point. I wrote about it. My husband and I are both public accountants, so we were gearing up for the impending “Busy Season” (that’s February through…
Work-Life Balance: How to Find What Really Works for You
Feeling perpetually tired and overwhelmed? You may need to reclaim your work-life balance. I’ve been there. My day-to-day felt like a life-sized game of whack-a-mole. I was reacting as things arose, addressing them mostly on auto-pilot because I didn’t have the bandwidth to do anything more. I needed a rest!…
A Deep(er) Dive into Authenticity in the Workplace
It’s no secret that workplace culture is shifting in a major way, and as I’ve been exploring authenticity throughout the first half of this year, I couldn’t help but expand it to the employee experience once again. Here are some perspectives that might help you feel more authentic at work.
Why I’m Happily Back in the Office (and the Drawbacks of WFH)
We cubicle bumblebees love to idealize work-from-home arrangements. The reclamation of commute time, the quiet space, the sweatpants… But there's a certain joy that's come from returning to the office after three years!
Reclaiming My Creative Space (and Reprioritizing My Life)
I was struck by inspiration one evening, just as I was setting up my home office to return to work after a creatively expansive year-long maternity leave. It came in the form of this quote: Put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write,…
How to Work From Home (After Building Your Career In-Office)
I was absolutely a work-from-home advocate pre-pandemic. As it happened, we were actually very close to completing a work-from-home proposal at my office when the pandemic struck! How about that for coincidental timing. With the matter settled, I said goodbye to my “creative cubicle” and set up my little home…
The Reciprocal Relationship Between Creativity and Career
Many of us struggle with trying to enjoy a prolific creative life while holding down a 9-to-5, and so we just... Don't! We resolve that we'll pick up our hobbies again upon retirement, and until then we go on trudging through our day jobs. That can't be right, can it?…