I had a lovely conversation this weekend with three valued choral colleagues about work-life balance. Each had different solutions that worked to find balance.
One moved farther from campus, so she was less likely to run back to work after dinner.
One thought of the balance in the context of a year, not a day or a week – so February might be balanced heavily to work, but June is week with no work.
For my part, I do almost no composition or arranging when my children and wife are on school breaks.
On the other hand, digital connectivity is my big challenge – I am all too willing to check my email on the weekends, in the evenings. During times that should be family times.
There is no one right solution – we all have to find our own way to balance these things (and sufficient sleep should be non-negotiable…)
To me, the bigger question is one of societal pressure. Both the professional world and the student world receive nonstop messages to increase their own work input, in every field I know of. Individual productivity isn’t just a topic of conversation, it’s a focus of every major corporation. But this individual productivity at work comes, at least in part, by increasing the on-the-clock or off-the clock hours spent doing the job. And this comes at the price of, you guessed it, work-life balance.
It takes constant monitoring for individuals to stay off of this imbalance bandwagon.
We choral conductors are especially guilty of ignoring balance (for the sake of our students). We must do a better job – for ourselves, for our families, for our students. And we must do a better job of honoring students’ need for a school-life balance.