Data Engineering and not loosing your mind.
How I balance an aggressive professional and personal life.
A reader recently asked a question about work-life balance. It brought up a lot of mixed feelings in me, I’ve been through times of burnout and times of perfect balance and relaxation. Life’s hard, and so is work, both have highs and lows. The highs are high and boy, are the lows low.
I can relate to burnout and all the emotions that come along with it, especially in the early part of my Data Engineering career. There are a number of influences that affect how you can balance work and life, and be successful at both, or not. The funny thing is, there is an overlap between “stuff” that works for life and work, they are not mutually exclusive.
Today we are going to dive into this fraught subject, work-life balance in Data Engineering.
What is work-life balance?
How to manage and identify stress and underlying issues.
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Work-Life Balance.
Hasn’t this topic been done and overdone a million times over? Yes. Then why does the question come up, why is someone still asking me how to balance mental wellness while being a Data Engineer? Probably because we are all human and are born to trouble from beginning to end.
It seems like there is something underneath all these questions about work-life balance and handling the mental strains. Here’s my take.
What’s underneath the questions about work-life balance?
I’m going to side-step the question of “How to do this role when you have mental health concerns?” I want to look past this question and give you my personal worldview on why this question comes up in the first place.
“People, us, we, all are looking for meaning and happiness, to feel safe and secure. Most all of us are required to work in some form to provide for ourselves to obtain that end.”
“When working we trade part of ourselves for …. well, basically money. We in turn use that money to put a roof over our head, feed ourselves, and the like.”
What is it about work-life balance that causes problems?
I’m going to now rattle off a bunch of reasons why I think work-life balance can cause us so much heartache. It’s because there are a lot of very complicated “things” happening in our personal lives, and work lives, and when these two things intertwine together … the result is many times “imbalance”, in the sense the ship you’re own starts to rock back and forth and make you feel funny.
What kind of complicated “things” intertwine?
Workplace culture.
Home life and interpersonal relationships in the moment (immediate and extended).
Physical well-being (sleep patterns, food, exercise, etc).
Amount of “work” at work to do (pressure).
Self-identity and meaning as a person.
Co-worker and boss relations.
Finanacial obligations.
World and cultural happenings.
You have to admit this is a list of life “things” we all experience and that each of them as an individual can become extremely complicated, let alone throwing them all into some big pot and mixing them together while adding some fireworks.
At any given time, maybe half of the things on the list might be going well, and the other half not so much. This is what I think leads to burnout, work-life balance, stress, call it what you want, a very real personal armageddon.
How to manage and identify stress and underlying issues.
So how can we unwind from this mess and get some clarity and relief from stress, work-life balance, or whatever? I’m going to give you a few baseline measures to put in place, that by no means will solve all your problems, but surely will lead to more happiness on your part.
Let me know if I missed any that have been helpful to you.
Regular uninterrupted sleep.
No one functions well over an extended period without adequate rest.
Exercise (hard physical exertion)
Like actually running or going to the gym.
Being in nature, wind in the hair, sun in the face.
Go outside silly.
Have a hobby that makes you happy.
Find something that isn’t work (coding) that you find joy in.
Find a new job if you’re in a toxic work environment.
Work isn’t worth your health.
Find identity/meaning outside of, or in addition to your vocation.
Probably related to the hobby.
Don’t work overtime for extended periods.
It’s ok in short stints, not for months+.
Find ways to overcome hardship.
Life and work are hard, learn to persevere, it’s a learned skill (like running a few miles).
Practice ways to disconnect.
Read a book, go for a walk, whatever, train yourself to disconnect.
Eat well.
Don’t eat junk all the time, cook for yourself healthy meals.
Learn to manage your time better.
Become the best you’ve ever been at time management.
Take a class on conflict management.
Get on YouTube, and learn how to have difficult conversations. You’ll feel better.
Make a budget and live within your means.
Be a wise manager of your financial resources.
Stop consuming so much TV and social media.
FYI. They make money on getting your emotions boiling.
Big list uh? What did I miss? I haven’t gotten to the hard part yet.
I’ve got good news and bad news.
So after all that, if you’re not even more overwhelmed, just wait. Ha! So that was a big list but I would call most of it common sense, probably stuff your Grandma did every day of her life.
What’s the good news?
“The good news is that even though you might deny it, pretty much everything on the list and related to your work-life balance is under your control. No excuses.”
Bad job? Step up to the plate and make a plan to get a new one. Not exercising, getting outside, and eating well? Seriously, it’s not rocket science. Sure I know not everything is under your control, but more than you think is.
You’re your own master, act like it. Take control. In all seriousness, implement some of the stuff on the list, take charge and action, movement forward, that is how you get out of a bad situation and be on the wrong side of work-life balance.
What’s the bad news?
That you’re in control. Good luck.
