By Jho-Anne Layugan
In this current age, young professionals like me are now becoming more competitive at work. We tend to envision ourselves as future executives of a company. It is good news because we want to attain a terminal value of a comfortable life. In this way, we will make our families experience all the best things that this world can offer.
Counting the cost
Our parents will also be proud of what we’ve achieved. But this success will not come in an instant. It means overtime work, sleepless nights, less time with family, pimple breakouts and many other setbacks.
I remember my situation before when I was still with auditing firm Sycip Gorres Velayo & Co. I stayed there for four years and I experienced office work overtime. even on Holidays like Holy Week and Dec. 31. This has been a tradition in the company since the deadline of filing of annual income tax returns is set every April 15 while Dec. 31 is usually the cutoff date for physical inventory cycle counts. On hitting the April 15 deadline, we usually only had two to four hours of sleep in a day. That is why every April 15, there is buffet feast in our office which is a sign of the end of our no-sleep misery.
Missing family
Still in SGV, I also remember a point when I was not able to go home for a month to my real home in Cavite province because of another engagement (apart from the normal tax return filing season). My family (parents, sister, and grandmother) was already missing me. I had a lot of family affairs that I missed including my grandmother’s birthday. I was really sad to miss moments like that where you know that your close relatives will gather in my grandmother’s house and celebrate and will be having fun while you are away busy working.
On a side note, when I reopened my twitter account after ages, I saw my sister’s tweets about me not going home yet. She has many posts saying that she’s hoping I go home soon. Although her tweet was three years ago, it still saddened me because I did not know that I was badly missed in our home.
Choosing greener pastures
In relation to this, I thought of our OFWs who go after higher salaries in richer countries. It must have been very difficult for them to leave their families behind. But is it always right to choose a greener pasture over bonding with family?
Some OFWs may be able to provide all the luxuries to their children but they cannot provide what their children really needs – the tender loving care of a mother or father. For me, no amount of riches can beat the feeling of having your parents around you because you know that you have someone to help you and pick you up when you fall.
Avoiding overtime
With all these things being said, we ought to find work–life balance so we can live our life to the fullest. According to McLeod, we can avoid overtimes by doing these seven things:
• Begin the day with the end in mind – Psych up that you have to leave work on time.
• Tell people when you have to leave – This is to escape from unimportant last minute assignments or meetings.
• Allow 20 minutes to transition – Do your filing of papers and cleaning of work area ahead of time.
• Do the most important work – Make sure to focus on your most important and urgent work.
• Stop wasting time during the day – Stop checking emails every five minutes and avoid gossips
• Pick up the phone – Try to call your business partners. It’s much faster than email.
• Use technology to help you focus – Try to automate your manual works through extensive use of Macros in Microsoft Excel.
The author is an MBA student at the Ramon V. del Rosario College of Business. This essay is part of a journal she kept in fulfillment of the requirements of the course, Lasallian Business Leadership with Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics. Visit her blog at http://jho-annewrites.blogspot.com/.
The views expressed here are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official position of DLSU, its faculty, and its administrators.