• 20.9.17

    THE WORK/LIFE BALANCE: HOW I WORK FULL TIME, HAVE A SOCIAL LIFE & BLOG

    When it comes to juggling a full time job, a social life and 'me' time, it can be a huge struggle. More often than not, the two lines get blurred and before you know it, you're having a mental breakdown - you're rushed off your feet at work, but at the same time you haven't seen your family in months. Over the past few months, I've done something that I've never done before, and that is, working a full time job. It took a lot of adjusting and I'll be the first to admit that my blog/social media and family life took a backseat. But ironically enough, just as I've gotten the hang of it, I'm going back to university and cutting down to part time - Sod's law.
    | MAKE THE EFFORT
    I know it can be hard, especially after a long and tiresome day at work, but if you don’t put the effort to actually go out, you never will. My friends were home from university over summer and I wanted to see them as much as possible as I felt like I hadn’t seen them in ages and this meant that I had to actually make the effort to see them. There were times where I had worked from twelve o’clock midday, to eleven thirty at night and I would drive myself straight from work to one of their houses to spend a few hours with them, despite having work at ten o’clock the following morning. There’s no doubt that it’s tiring, but at the same time, there’s nothing like spending time with your friends, whether it’s at the pub, in a park (not late at night) or just at someone’s house spending hours and hours on end, just chatting about random stuff.

    | USE YOUR TIME
    This is something that can be quite tricky, if you work in a job that is particularly physically draining, as I’m sure all you want to do in your free time is lay in bed watching catch-up TV until you next need to be up for work. This is the thing that really f*cked me up when I started working full time which consequentially led to my blog taking a back seat. I would just stay in bed all day on my day off (apart from a quick trip to the nail shop) and I wouldn’t do anything else really. After a couple of months, I actually started to use my days off to catch up on blogging and actually doing things. For example, the day that I’m writing this is my day off work and I have about another five or so posts to write after this in addition to social media and emails to do (albeit, I’m in my bed, but at least I’m doing something productive). I’m now at a point where if I don’t do anything productive on my days off, I feel like I’ve wasted a day – so use your time wisely!


    S H O P   T H E   L O O K


    | SAY NO
    I know that I previously said, to make the effort, but don’t be afraid to actually say no. If you have limited time anyway, you don’t want to waste it doing something you couldn’t give a flying monkey’s about. I’m actually that person who up until recently said no to a lot of motives. Pretty much anywhere that I couldn’t drive to, didn’t like the food or just in general wasn’t interested in or couldn’t be bothered to go to, I wouldn’t go to. A few of my friends are vegan, so they like going to vegan hot spots, which are mainly situated around central London and me being a meat eater, I’d happily spend £5 in KFC on some popcorn chicken and chips, rather than trekking into central London to pay an insane amount for some vegan chicken – which I’ve heard is actually very good and tastes exactly like chicken, but it would cost me more money to pay for travel than if I were to quickly walk or drive to KFC.

    | ORGANISE YOUR TIME
    If you work a 9-5 this is probably a little bit easier, as you already know your work schedule, but if like me you only find out your work schedule a few days in advance, it’s a little trickier. I try and organize my time as best as I can with the help of my trustee Filofax. By organizing your time, you will get the most out of it and therefore be more productive and not feel like you’ve wasted a sh*t tonne of time. it’s all about balance and it means that you can spend more time doing what you want. Everyone’s different and has different priorities, for example my priorities are my blog and seeing my friends/family, but someone else may be to spend every waking moment going shopping. I’ve just found that organizing my time has reduced the amount of time I waste and allowed me to do more of what I want to do.

    How do you get the work/life balance right?

    Would you like to comment?

    @charlottechristmasx