Top Ten Tips on Finding Personal and Professional Balance

Category: General Teaching Practices

1. There is more to you than work. Develop a hobby, volunteer in your community, seek out friends from other areas of your life or your past. Explore other aspects of who you are.
2. Take a vacation at least once a year, and really mean it. Take breaks during the day, walk outside when the weather permits, and strive to disconnect, even if it’s for five minutes.
3. Don’t expect yourself to be highly productive all the time. There are periods when you need downtime—take it, and don’t feel guilty about it.
4. Involve your family in what you do. Take them to conferences, bring them to lectures, and make them feel as important as they are. Talk to them every day about your day.
5. Build a healthy routine. Set parameters for when you come in and when you go home. Maintain your boundaries. Make a plan for your goals and a schedule of what time you will spend on meeting them. Buy as much time as possible, and sell as little as possible.
6. Learn to say no. You have limits, and recognizing and respecting them is important for health and wholeness. Do less and make it count more.
7. Learn to celebrate. Take in a movie, a game, a walk in the park after completing a project or meeting a challenge. Reward yourself and accept your achievement before moving on to the next thing on your list.
8. Listen to your needs and that of your friends and family. Don’t push your perfectionism so much that you can’t enjoy what you do and who you are. If you are stressed, take the time to analyze why.
9. Expect and accept change. Your time will be spent and allocated differently depending on the stage of your career and the needs of your personal life—as you evolve, so must your approach to balance.
10. Manage the system. Familiarize yourself with the expectations of your department, your college, your profession … and your own and your family’s. Communicate to all concerned. And utilize your campus’ many resources—exercise facilities, stress management classes, etc.—to keep yourself on an even keel.

Sources

U.C. Berkeley, Office of Educational Development, New Faculty Teaching Newsletter #22 (March 9, 2007)
http://teaching.berkeley.edu/newsletters0607/newsletter22.html
Project Kaleidoscope: Interviews with NSF Distinguished Teaching Scholars, “Balancing Career and Personal Life” (PDF)
www.sdbonline.org/DTS_Balancing-career-and-personal-life.pdf
“Balancing Life and Work: Three Perspectives from Tenured Faculty at the University of Virginia”; Teaching Resource Center, University of Virginia
http://trc.virginia.edu/Publications/OP_Balancing/Intro.htm

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