The effects of personal life on work and vice versa

The delicate tightrope we all must walk separating our personal interests and passions from professional positions and ambitions is key to finding success and fulfillment on both sides of one’s life. Akin to two sides of the same coin, “work-life balance,” as it has come to be called in recent years, can be better understood as representing the totality of an individual’s daily duties, pleasures, and comforts. 

Historically speaking, the American approach to work-life balance has always resembled something a bit closer to work-work balance. For decades U.S. workers have been inundated with the notion that if your career doesn’t define you, you must be doing something wrong. Tons of bosses have been (and still are) all too quick to label their employees as lazy or unmotivated all for simply wanting to clock out at 5PM and leave their work worries at the office as opposed to carrying all that stress home with them.

Nowadays, however, it appears the winds of change are blowing throughout corporate America. More and more modern employees are prioritizing balance in their lives, even if that means missing out on a promotion or even facing unemployment. One recent survey from 2022 revealed one in four Americans (28%) had quit a job within the prior two years over mental health concerns. When asked what typically causes work-related stress, 33% of respondents cited a lack of work-life balance. An even more recent poll just released this year reports an astounding 60% of millennials in the workforce today would happily accept a 20% pay cut in exchange for a better work-life balance. 

If nothing else, the numbers and statistics mentioned above illustrate the importance of finding the right mixture of work and play, or personal and professional endeavors, in this life. That being said, work-life balance isn’t solely about a strict separation of all things business from playful. No event on either side of the work-life balancing act we all find ourselves performing occurs in a vacuum. Our personal choices end up impacting what happens on the job, and professional preferences undoubtedly influence one’s homelife. Here are just a few examples of how personal decisions can affect work outcomes and vice versa.

Creative hobbies

Everyone needs at least a few hobbies to help blow off steam during freetime, and while we all can’t be Shakespeare or Picasso, consider tapping into your creative side the next time you find yourself with nothing to do. Not only are such activities rewarding in their own right, research published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology suggests creative pursuits and hobbies can lead to improved job performance by way of sharper creative problem solving skills and helping coworkers more often.

Sleep reigns supreme

Night owls with a 9 to 5 may feel like they’ve discovered a “life hack” for more freetime by staying up all night, but science tells us sleep is an absolute must when it comes to professional productivity. Eye-opening (shutting?) new research just published in the Journal of Public Health encompassing over 12,000 working adults names lack of adequate sleep as the number one factor associated with poor work performance.  

Stay off social media

Social media is a habitual part of the day for tens of millions of people. Plenty of working adults glance at their favorite collection of apps periodically throughout the day, whether in an office meeting or lounging casually at home. Fascinating findings out of Germany published in the scientific journal Behaviour and Information Technology, however, indicate we’d all be happier at our jobs if we cut back on social media scrolling. When study authors asked a group of regular social media users to cut back on usage by 30 minutes daily for just one week, subjects reported feeling less overwhelmed at work, more job commitment, and higher levels of job satisfaction.

Managers and marriages

Anyone who has ever dealt with a toxic, overbearing boss knows that what happens in the office doesn’t stay there. Abusive management creates a working environment characterized by fear and anxiety – and workers can’t help but bring at least a few of those feelings home with them at the end of the day. A study published in Personnel Psychology even concluded that toxic, abusive bosses can be detrimental to their workers’ marriages. Researchers explain stress and tension brought on by a bad manager promotes a tense environment at home for employees’ spouses and children. 

Hearts and schedules 

Research released late last year by Harvard tells us a more flexible workplace promotes better heart health among workers most at-risk of developing heart disease. During the study, participating supervisors were advised on how to better support their employees’ personal and family lives in unison with more traditional job expectations, and entire teams (supervisors and employees) attended a series of seminars on how to promote more employee control over personal schedules and assignments. Consequently, workers with a higher baseline cardiometabolic risk profile (particularly older employees) saw their risk of heart disease drop off considerably. Researchers explain the observed cardiac risk reductions were about equal to between 5 to 10 years of age-related cardiometabolic changes. In other words, a more flexible working arrangement may help your heart feel up to a decade younger!

AI and alcohol

Coworkers can be annoying. Still, the next time you find yourself peeved by a colleague, take a moment and remember at least they’re a fellow human. Futuristic and fairly depressing research published in the Journal of Applied Psychology notes a correlation between human employees working side-by-side with AI and an increased risk of loneliness, insomnia, and binge drinking.