Right now I am trying to be in a place of calm, a place where I can chill out and then handle the chaos of life better. You don't just get it overnight; you have to work at it. It's a daily struggle. Jackee Harry
Struggles are an unavoidable ingredient of any journey, especially at the beginnings. Everyone might face their own difficulties and hardships along the road; however, the common thing here is that the STRUGGLE IS REAL!
As an Outreachy intern with an open-source project - InterMine, I experienced lots of moments of feeling stuck, frustrated, and quite overwhelmed during the first three weeks of my internship. In the first week, my main task was to explore and master several new tools required to work on my project, which was rather exciting because I really enjoy learning new things. I faced some technical issues and some Git difficulties; however, the key struggle was creating the right work-life balance for my situation.
I have been struggling with working full-time hours to follow my proposed project plan while still spending time caring for my family, finishing my volunteer tasks, getting enough sleep, and focusing on my health problems. At the start of my internship, I tried to work 8 hours a day - with almost no breaks - to get my tasks done faster. I thought by doing so; I will be saving more time for other personal activities and myself. This approach failed miserably as I had no energy nor desire left to engage in anything. I had to rethink my ways and develop a better strategy to find my own work-life balance.
Work-life balance is not about dividing hours equally between work tasks and personal life. It is about being flexible to finish your work assignments while still having energy and time for your personal life. I realized that it is impossible to achieve the perfect work-life balance; however, a realistic balance is more attainable. Now, I am prioritising my health and adjusting my plans and schedule if I am not feeling good. I use a tracking tool called Toggl to track hours worked while taking frequent breaks to stretch and recharge. I focus on each day separately because no one size fits all, and we need to accept that each day is different. After all, I think improving one's work-life balance comes slowly over time and can't be achieved overnight. Till then, I will work out my struggles and accept them as part of my journey.
Yesterday I dared to struggle. Today I dare to win. — Bernadette Devlin