October 9, 2024
Work life balance: The never-ending struggle
By April Burke, PA-C | Vice President, Advanced Practice Providers
Every year around Physician Assistant (PA) Week, I like to reflect on the amazing career journey I have had as a PA. Over the past 16 years, I’ve treated more patients than I can count, counseled and reassured family members, worked with awesome colleagues, and been privileged to grow as a leader. Throughout that time, one topic has remained a staple of conversation between friends, family, and colleagues: the constant struggle around work-life balance.
As recently as this week, I’ve had conversations with colleagues about how hard it is to balance meeting the expectations of your job, ensuring you spend quality time with your family, and taking the time to care for yourself. The emotion most often described in these discussions is guilt. There is the work guilt of missing a meeting (even if it’s after official business hours) to prioritize that special time with your family, but also the family guilt associated with missing time with your loved ones if you take the meeting. People often feel they’re in a no-win situation. With all the shuffling of schedules and trying to meet expectations, we often put the piece of taking time for ourselves to the side — the piece we need to focus on the most. It truly is difficult to help others when you are not in a good place yourself.
As my role has evolved over the course of my career, my work-life balance, strategies, and goals have changed. Initially, when my kids were little, I was full-time clinical and focused on planning big family events around my clinical schedule knowing I would be working holidays and weekends. The tradeoff was that I had days off during the week to get things done around my house, run errands, and spend time with my family.
Today, I generally work a Monday to Friday schedule at home, and my kids are older with more extracurricular activities. My new focus is on setting boundaries around work hours to ensure I can be present with my kids as we go to their evening and weekend activities. Ultimately, work-life balance isn’t a one-size-fits-all thing, and there is no wrong or right way to approach it. You must find strategies that work best for you.
I am by no means an expert on this topic, but thought I would share some strategies that have worked for me in the past:
- Set boundaries and hold yourself accountable. Establish the boundaries you want to follow around things such as work hours or the amount of work you take on. Once you set the boundaries, make yourself stick to them.
- Establish a routine. We have so many daily tasks to do both at home and at work. Develop a routine that allows you to stay on top of tasks and make them seem less overwhelming. Don’t forget to build in time for yourself — I love my morning yoga time!
- Delegate tasks. Do this both at home and at work. It’s easy to believe you can do it all or don’t need help, but we all need help sometimes. Delegate tasks to your team both at home and at work. It will make them feel valued and take things off your plate that don’t need to be there.
- Plan ahead. If you know you have a busy week coming up, plan ahead as much as you can. One thing many people do is meal prepping/planning on the weekend. That way, figuring out what’s for dinner is not one more daunting item on your to-do list for the day.
Regardless of what strategy you try, remember to be patient with yourself, as this is a struggle that many experience. If you’d like to hear more discussion on this topic, tune into this episode of On Call during which my colleague Alicia and I discuss the concept of work-life integration.
