Okay, time for a little life update. After being unemployed for a year (very long 52 moneyless weeks), I actually managed to get myself a job. About time, right? And while I wasn’t extremely happy with it at the beginning, I absolutely love the people I work with and wouldn’t change it for the world. At least not for now anyway. But it’s been a real struggle to find the work-life balance (or even work-blog-life balance) everyone else seems to be acing at the moment. So I have been taking some time to learn about juggling everything, hence why I’ve been quite absent on here.
Being unemployed is all fun and games until you realise you may have all the time in the world, but you have no money and are stuck inside most of that said time. And then when you have a job you have all the money (in theory, because hi, minimum wage), but you have absolutely no energy and not really enough time. If I could sign the petition to make days longer, I would because maybe then I could get everything done on time. That is if my motivation kindly decided to show itself every now and then.
I’m lucky enough to be able to work every other day which means I have 4 days off in a week. Should be pretty easy to find time to do, well, pretty much everything. And maybe someone else would be perfectly fine with this amount of free time, but for someone who wasn’t working for a year and slept most of the time, I found myself lacking energy. All. The. Time. On my days off I was so tired I didn’t even want to get out of bed. And because my work days are incredibly scheduled and everything is planned, my days off were extremely sluggish and in all honesty, quite boring. Of course, I could have done some blogging or gone out with friends or just do anything I wanted, but lack of structure triggered my lack of motivation. No aim for the day = nothing gets done, at least in my dictionary at this moment in time. I mean, The Great British Bake Off is on Netflix now, which provides a great distraction from my laziness.
My biggest problem is the fact that I overload myself with tasks and I don’t give myself enough time to finish them. Because hello, my hallway needed redoing, my friends suddenly want to meet all the time and my boyfriend insists that he doesn’t see me anymore (lies) and wants to spend every free second I have with me. On top of that, it would be nice to keep up with my favourite TV shows, get enough sleep which seems to be impossible with sleep anxiety (read more about it here) and have a more or less healthy diet. So I do find it difficult to pencil some sort of creativity into my schedule.
What came out of it was feeling like a failure, a horrible blogger, everything felt like a waste of time and resulted in me being a lot more down than expected.
Am I overthinking it all? Most likely.
Seeing everyone online absolutely rocking their full-time jobs, climbing the career ladder, scheduling their posts 6 months ahead and still have time to go to the gym and go out with friends and family afterwards wasn’t helping my state of mind at all. Was I as much of a #girlboss as I thought I was? Or was I just blowing my own trumpet thinking I had a grip on my life… Well, sort of because I can never really get a grip on anything. And then one day I just sat down and thought ‘Wait a minute… I should not be doubting myself.’ I’m a blogger, worker, girlfriend, daughter, sister and everything in between. And most importantly, I am me. And I am doing the best I can in the situation I am in.
The good news is – I think I’m starting to get a hang of things. Slowly, yes, but surely. The hallway is pretty much finished (HALLELUJAH), I’m learning better time-management and hopefully will get my life back on track again. It feels great to be able to invest more money in this little piece of the Internet of mine, but what’s the point if I can’t invest enough time into it? I’m sure I will get there eventually and I will truly feel like I’m a rockstar again. Until then I’ll be sitting in my bed eating dark chocolate Hobnobs and drinking an unhealthy amount of tea and coffee.
Until next time xx
How did you find the work-life balance?
Read more: Life is boring – so what? or I’m sorry, did that offend you?
Tags : finding the work-life balance, how to balance work and life, work-life balance
Peanuts & Cacahuetes says
August 9, 2018 at 2:04 pmI had quite a nice work life balance. I found time to work and then go to dance in the evening, meet with friends or just having a date night with my boyfriend.
And now that I recently quitted my job, I relate to what you said: plenty of time, not much money.
The good thing is that I started blogging at the same time
So now I have a blog life balance. BUT as soon as I will start working again, I will have to adapt to this whole new work blog life balance like you mentioned above.
That will be more challenging for sure haha
Wish me luck 😛
Julia says
August 11, 2018 at 2:05 pmThe work-blog-life balance can be difficult to find haha good look in job hunting and I hope everything works out great for you!
Anu says
May 13, 2018 at 11:35 pmFinding a good work-life balance (or in my case, school-life balance) can be really difficult. I go to online school which means that I don’t really have any deadlines and get to be my own boss so having that balance is crucial but it can be really hard. For me having a proper routine even on my days off really helps me keep that balance 🙂 x
Anu | Based On blog
Julia says
May 22, 2018 at 8:14 pmIt’s all about balance, isn’t it? Good luck with your school!
andthenzen ✨ says
April 17, 2018 at 1:23 pmI’m unemployed again, so I can definitely relate to the whole ‘having all the time in the world, but no money to do anything’, but when I did have a job, I was so busy that I didn’t have enough time to do the things outside of work that I enjoyed, so I genuinely think I’m happier now! 😂🤷🏼♀️ It’s so important to find the balance between working and living!
Julia says
April 21, 2018 at 6:57 pmIt really is, but it’s so difficult at the same time! People were telling me I’ll be able to do so much more once I have a job and now even though I work part-time (but still doing loads of overtime) I have no time or energy.
Francesca says
April 16, 2018 at 7:46 pmCongrats on the job! I’m terrified of this prospect for when I live uni because I have a lot of free time at the moment and whilst I should be doing my dissertation, it’s too easy to just switch Netflix on! Work will definitely be a wake-up call, so hopefully, I find a good work-life-blog balance!x
Francesca
Julia says
April 21, 2018 at 6:56 pmI left my dissertation until the last moment but the relief you feel when it’s done can’t be compared to anything else! Good luck!
charlotte severn says
April 8, 2018 at 7:25 pmPersonally, I work two jobs and have absolutely 0 work life balance – it’s all just work. The people I work with get me through it because their all godsends but I’d love longer days and more time just to have time to myself really.
Julia says
April 10, 2018 at 11:37 amWork is so much more bearable when you work with nice people! I work with great girls and I have no idea what I’d do without them.
Alice says
April 8, 2018 at 1:12 pmAdjusting to change is always a struggle but you’ll get there! No matter how long it takes, I’m sure you’ll be thriving in no time. I think having that structure and schedule for your days off is massively important and also scheduling in rest and recovery time is also huge because you need time alone and some TLC. Hope your hallway is looking fab!
Alice Xx
Julia says
April 10, 2018 at 11:36 amThe hallway is looking a lot better than it did, thanks 😀 thank you for support and kind words, I definitely need to figure out a structure for my days off xx
Alice says
April 8, 2018 at 9:37 amLove how relatable this is, it is literally my life! Especially with full-time work and trying to balance blogging. I always give myself a big list of stuff to get done and then I get too tired or unmotivated to do it and then feel crappy for not being productive, it’s a vicious cycle! Even if I just had an extra day a week, it would be so helpful to just get things done. And then there’s fitting in other life things! I definitely need better time management skills haha, I’m with you on just eating biscuits and drinking coffee to be honest x
Alice | http://www.accordingtoalicex.com
Julia says
April 10, 2018 at 11:17 amPeople who work full-time and blog need some kind of special award 😀 biscuits and coffee is always the best answer haha
Brooke says
April 8, 2018 at 9:18 amI loved this, I went from being a student to working part time and being a student. I found it really hard to balance everything. I seem to have gotten into a good routine now, but I still give myself too many tasks to do. I hope everything goes good with your new job!
Brooke x
http://www.brooke-pearson.co.uk
Julia says
April 8, 2018 at 9:20 amI used to work part-time at uni as well, it was so difficult at first! Good luck with your studies xx