Question: Do you live a balanced life between home and work? How do you manage this with a demanding job?
Comments
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Hearing three people so passionatley doing what they want to do makes me feel as though doing what I want to do is the most important thing. Thanks for telling me that you can still be balanced with a demanding job.
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@rking Doing what you want is THE most important thing… took me a few years to figure that out. If you do what you love you will be good at it and do well eventually
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That’s the most important thing, rking – enjoying what you do, loving what you do. It means you like to get up to go to work in the morning. I think a lot of scientists have a strong sense of vocation, it’s more than a job for us. Do what you love, do it well. It’s the most important thing.
rking
I try my hardest to keep a balance between home and work… but that can be pretty challenging. I would work over 60 hours a week most weeks but I am very lucky that my family understand the demands of my job. I have two little kids so probably don’t spend as much time working at the moment as I need to, but it’s all about priorities.
You have to be very efficient and find time to squeeze in work when you get a chance (on train trips, in airports etc etc.) I’m sitting here working on my laptop while I watch the football, for example!!
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I think its all about recognising what is important to you and making sure you prioritise those things.
Being a scientist is kind of like being self-employed, so you have a lot of control over how you plan your day and when you’re going to get your experiments done. So if I need to leave work early one day – I can – cause I can always work late on another day. If I’ve got an appointment, or my Mum is coming to visit, I know I can schedule my day with a big break in the middle, and work around it. It’s a pretty flexible job and gives me the freedom to find the right balance.
And science can be demanding, but it is also something I love doing. Picking a career that you enjoy is important for having a happy life!
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I have struck a balance and part of it was choosing the right job for me. When and where I get my work done is not important, as long as I get it done on time. This gives me some flexibility to choose my own work hours which lets me fit work around the other things I do. Also I enjoy what I do so it doesn’t feel like a grind.
As an engineer I could get higher salaries working in industry, but the work and hours would be much less flexible. Most of my mates from uni when into industry and I never get to see them because they are always working!
The key here is to choose a career and job that you enjoy and lets you do the things you want to.
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I try to keep a good balance between home and work, but it doesn’t always work! I’m the helping hands of the lab as a research assistant, I do the experiments for two projects, which means I often have to run long experiments and I sometimes keep crazy hours. This doesn’t happen all the time though, it depends on how the project is going and what the experiments are. But I manage to keep my weekends free, and with whatever spare time I may have, I make sure I have as much fun as I can!
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