Work-life balance in american culture

In American culture, individuals are fixed into thinking their careers are more important than any other priority. As a result, people are forced into casting their meaningful relationships aside, and as a consequence, these relationships are crumbling apart. Indeed, work and lives are spinning out of control! Indeed. employees today in America must put their main focus back on their families and significant relationships. Certainly, there are various simple strategies to balance our nation’s demands and ameliorate this unfortunate trend.

Work tends to repeat itself often with nothing different each day. It’s like never ending stacks of work to do and the overwhelming feel frustration and burden. Such as, when we try to finish work for the day, and to go home to our loved ones under the same circumstances, it can be a handful task. One solution can be: open to change. Instead of focusing on one obstacle thinking there is only one way to solve it, have an open mind and find different ways to solve the task at hand. Professors Hornby& Bleed coveys that,” many times a drastic change is needed to obtain your desired balance.” (Hornby& Bleed) This demonstrates that we need to be creative when trying to correspond between the two lifestyles. Change is needed seeing that if the current method isn’t working then it will not work any better in the future. To give an idea, if you get a new coworker and he/she keeps taking all the credit, of course it is discouraging, and there is a problem which needs to be solved. Small talk and giving hints isn’t going to make them notice what they are doing, or address the problem. Of course, maybe the old coworker wasn’t like this at all and this is something very out of the blue, and being baffled is a negative outcome one might feel. One thing we can do is communicate clearly along with being straightforward about the issue to the coworker. Green insists, “ Speak up! Be more proactive about claiming credit before he/she gets a chance to steal it, which means keeping your boss in the loop about what you’re working on, as well as your ideas and achievements.” (Green) Changing the way we approach the coworker is a great way to approach the issue instead of beating around the bush about it. There are countless ways to change a method so that it would be less of a hinder for work, and being open to change is one of the solutions.

Again waking up late to work, again papers scattered all over the kitchen table from last night’s procrastination, trying to stuff everything in the bag, then driving up the driveway and remembering that the bag is still on the kitchen table…again. This scenario is happening in everyday American lives, and only proves one common factor: Bad habits. Having bad habits can contribute to an unbalanced lifestyle by adding the unnecessary hassle that can be worked out with a type of manageable strategy. Some of the most common bad habits are procrastination, and tardiness, according to Smith from “ 14 Bad Habits That Can Cost You Your Job”. “ A single bad habit is not likely to get you fired immediately, but the cumulative effect of the bad habit over time can (Smith). Just like fixing a worn out tire before it pops into a flat tire, we need to eliminate our bad habits that can cost us our careers in the future! A small step we can take towards to healing from one of the most common one, procrastination, is making little reminders for ourselves. Putting a reminder from 2 weeks it due or every 10 min to start the project, even the littlest thing can help solve this issue (Spencer). Remember that in the beginning it won’t immediately work because we as humans are not perfect, but fixing it little day by day we can help fix our lifestyles as a whole. Likewise, tardiness can leave a bad reputation that can lead to no job. To fix this habit, one way is to know how much time you have to get ready instead of guessing and thinking you still have time when in reality, there is really not enough time. Have your stuff prepared for work before the time you are supposed to leave, or a day early, this can prevent the “ one more task syndrome” where we believe that we have everything until right before we are about to leave, we remember to do or get something ( Baer). By getting our things ready we can prevent this problem and won’t be late to work over something so uncomplicated. There are many others habits for different people, but baby steps are the way to a better future in the work community.

Likewise, precious families are on the verge of crumbling their relationship apart due to the fact that parents are working overtime. In this developing age, Parents are not there to see the special moments in their child’s life, moments that mean the world for the child because the parents are stuck in the office. This household style is becoming very common in American lives and it is not for the better! Without a doubt, situations like these can be solved by an effortless approach such as doing the little stuff with our families. To illustrate, we can do simple activities, such as going for a bike ride, sharing an interesting craft project, baking or cooking a meal, going for a hike in a local park, or taking a car ride. The most rewarding family activities aren’t necessarily the most formal or expensive ones. (“ The Problem with Work/Life Balance”) Doing the most undemanding activities can mean the universe for our children, and help us spend more deserving time with them, as well. Additionally, communicating clearly towards coworkers and family members so that everyone is on the same page is also a strategy. (Stan) To illustrate, tell clearly to the boss or coworker the day we want to get a day off or leave early for a family occasion. Be sure to be very clear about the proposal so that no last- minute work can stand in the way between us and our families. Also, communicating means standing up for us as well. If the boss tries to tell us that we need to stay to do more work, already knowing we asked time off, we need to tell them clearly that we asked ahead of time about leaving early so no can do. Furthermore, we can also propose that we finish the work another day, or come in early the next day. All in all, there are basic things we can do as parents to make sure that our loved ones get the love and attention they deserve.

There are only 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week, yet sometime that is not enough time for us to accomplish our work. Time management is crucial in accomplishing our goal for work- life balance because time is very limited in our lifestyle. One particular way to help fix this issue is to make a schedule and take everything little by little. “ Use a planner and use it to excess, blocking off time for projects, recording future “ due dates”, follow-ups, appointments, special events, family birthdays…” is a strategy we can use from the article, 15 Time Management Strategies to Improve Your Work Day. By using this method we can help organized our priorities, and make room for the more important things, like our loved ones. Additionally, when trying to accomplish time management we need to let go of perfectionism. Perfectionism can cause us to sidetrack and only focus on one task. Also trying to make our work perfect as possible, and spend hours on that one thing forgetting the other as equal important work we have to do as well. As El-Attrash prevails upon,

“ When we’re juggling several responsibilities and priorities, we’re not going to always be 100% in everything. That’s why it’s important not to take on too much while also knowing that there are times when we will not always have it together…Be grateful and accept that getting by is more than enough.”

This demonstrates how we need to push our urge of perfectionism aside and do stuff little by little at a time. We need to accept our imperfections’ because we are humans and are going to make mistakes, and get through our heads that one little mistake will not cost us our career. Seeing this through and taking each task as how it should be handled, is going in the right direction of our success to work-life balance

All things considered, it is up to us whether we can make the changes ourselves and make a work-life balance lifestyle possible because if not, our lives could be in going down in a crisis. That crisis is focusing on what is important, and that is our significant relationships outside of work. With these various simple strategies, our vision for work- life balance is within the reach of our hands.