OK, guys, I will go ahead and start because we have only 20 minutes and it's very short time to pack everything that I want to tell you in today's session. But I will try to do my best and hopefully, um you enjoy.So today we will be talking about a very interesting topic which is work-life balance and also work-life integration and work life balance has become one of deciding factors when it comes to picking a job. I think now more than ever with being through pandemic, I think work and life kind of blended more together and it had been become like more tricky because maybe during pandemic, we forgot to like when to stop, stop working. And we thought that we always have to be available uh all the time for our colleagues and maybe we jumped straight from bed to work and we thought, OK, work is taking over so much and maybe we need more balance. We need to divide timer equally between our work life and private life and possibly this would make things better. Well, the thing is that there's actually over 5 million results on on Google on what is work life balance, how to achieve it, why you should want it all of these like tips and hacks and how you should be implementing it.

But I think we don't really stop and think about what it is. Are we chasing something that we chase just for the sake of it that we think it will make us happy that you think this is the cure to everything and that we should be wanting that. I think it's pretty dangerous because in that case, we might not achieve it. And then if we don't achieve it, there's more guilt, there's more stress associated with that. So in this session, we will cover what is work life balance if that's the right thing for you, if that's something that you can achieve and we will have like a different view on that. We will talk about work life integration. And so to start with, let's talk about what's balanced and balance is a situation in which different elements are equal. So if we have a look at uh work and personal life is the time equal. And I would say it's not because work takes majority time of our day. And even if you would say, OK, I spent eight hours at work and then I still have some time in the morning, I still have time in the evening. So possibly you could have eight and eight hours, the energy will not be same if majority of the day you're at work, your energy will possibly like go down and then you feel like when it comes to your personal life, you don't have energy to do the things that you want.

So time doesn't feel equal. Energy is not equal. And also priorities are not equal when you think about work and life. And now let me tell you a short story about my friend. Um It might be a bit weird that during this uh talk, I'm not talking about myself. I'm talking about my friend, but I feel like she's a great example and she's a great example of someone that we look up towards to thinking, oh my God, she has it all. She owns her own company. They do recruiting and consulting for other companies. So she's her own boss. And at the same time, she is a person that's active and she's meeting people and she's traveling to all these places and you might be thinking like, how does she do it all? How does she balance everything and to cut it short, long story short, she doesn't balance it. So she really takes work as part of her life and something that she really enjoys, something that she wants to invest it and something that keeps her moving forward. So while um majority of her time and energy goes to work, uh and work is priority, she actually does something that she loves and work is something that she really enjoys.

And even though the society point of view is more as in, you should slow down and you should not be working so much. She would not be following her passion. The thing is that now she's in the stage of learning and having this big opportunity to do something amazing. And if she would settle for the balance, she would not be where she is at the moment. The balance were kind of in a stagnating place. Everything would seem to be in the same proportions, but you would have to say no opportune to opportunities. And if there will be something new coming in, you would again, either have to say no all the time, therefore not keep moving or you would always have to reshuffle things to balance them out again and not a definition of balance is an even distribution, enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady.

This will mean that we view work as something depleting something, stressing something that has to be done in order to achieve the lifestyle that we want. And therefore we want to balance it with things that we actually want to do the fun things and we call it life. So it will look something like this. It would look as having work on the one side and life on the other side, having stress and then time to relax and having duty, something that we have to do and having the fun, something that we want to do. And this is like very idealistic. But if we look at it from a different perspective, life can also be pretty stressful and it can look more like that because in life, maybe you're dealing with some loneliness, maybe you're dealing with like a motivation or not finding the joy and the things that you found joy before.

And of course, there's other aspects such as the pandemic, such as war, such as political uh situation that impacts all of life, not just personal, but also of course, um of course, uh work as well. So they kind of go hand in hand. And that means that even though we have this relaxed and fun on the other side, since the stress is taking over, maybe you cannot sleep properly or you don't feel like doing fun things because you just feel like um you're not up for any, any fun stuff at the moment. And I believe that in life, we're constantly off balance rather than on balance because we always have to prioritize, we have to make adjustments, uh pick or drop opportunities and learn and experiment. And this is how we always move forward. And I believe at some point things can even now that it feels like, OK, everything has more or less the same, uh let's say value. But then a life happens as it always does and maybe you're starting a family or maybe you're getting promotion at your job. Maybe you're picking a new job or maybe like me, you relocate to a completely different country and you life kind of shifts and you have to readjust and the goal should not be to try to have everything in the same proportion but have it in a way that suits you as who you are.

So, I don't think it's, um, something good or bad that always something is coming in the way it's just natural. So we should not feel stressed about it or we should not feel guilty about it, that things are not in the same proportion. And I wonder if any one of you saw uh this similar image before, if you did let me know in the chat and this picture is called how adulthood feels like. And you're supposed to pick only three options and that feels so uh overwhelming or so kind of sad in a way that in life, we cannot have everything, it feels like that we have to take one over another and it just feels impossible. And I think if we look at it as in um having everything in equal, everything has equal priority, then it's true. You cannot have everything at the same time. But if we look at it from a different perspective, I'm sure we can find a way to integrate them, find where they're overlapping and uh see where is the connection. So if we zoom out a little bit, I see it as not eight separate aspects, but four categories, we have work, we have relationships, we have health, both mental and physical and our interests. And now let's look one by one of how we can combine them together.

So when we think about work and interests, are you utilizing what you like and what are your personality traits in your job? So how you do your work and what is your work kind of focused on and just to give you example. So for me, one of my personality trait, I'm a very curious person. And as my work, as a product designer, I constantly do user research. So I get to get be curious and answer the questions that I'm asking and trying to find um like answers. So that's why I'm how I'm using curiosity at my work. But for you, it might be something different, maybe, uh you're a really good communicator, maybe you're really good at managing conflicts, maybe uh you're more social or less social. And how does that impact impact the way you work? Uh Another thing is, is your company's values aligned with your values, what's really important to you? And in terms of what your company does, is it something that you're curious about? Something that you feel like you can learn more about? So let's look at the other overlaps another one. So if you bring in is the health aspect. So first of all, is your work supporting your health? And again, I don't think this is necessarily about the amount of hours it's more about, um for example, when it comes to vacation, do you feel comfortable?

And um uh do you feel like you can take vacation when you need it or do you feel like, oh my God, they will not be able to do anything without me. So I never take vacation and then that kinda like piles up. So do you have the support from your team? Do you know that you can take rest when you need it? Do you have maybe flexibility to work around your energy and maybe do things based on what your body needs? So do the, if you're more productive in the morning, maybe you want to do some sports and start later or on the other hand, maybe you wanna spend more time in the afternoon. So do you have the support from your work? Do you have the flexibility? And as you see it also um overlaps of the interests? So again, maybe part of your interest, it is health aspect. So this can be anything from cooking healthy or exercising um or focusing on your mind, focusing on your spirituality. So anything like that and let's add the last aspect to it, which is relationships. So we can think about in terms of if you feel connected to the people that you work with, also with relationships and interests. If you're sharing what you love to do with the people that you love. So you include them in the things that you enjoy doing in your hobbies.

And at the same time, like is work, something that you can share with your circle of family friends or is work like a taboo that you don't want to talk about it and then you're not involving them. So I think we can find these overlaps and see how they can work hand in hand and um actually work together uh rather than being all separate and thinking we have to pick one or another. And this means that we all have different, let's say priorities. Some of these aspects will take a bigger amount of our focus, some will take a smaller amount. And for Mina, for example, as I mentioned, my friend, it's right now, it's mostly work and also work is a big part of her interest and she's constantly learning. And for me, actually, work is now not as big priority as for example, last year. And I'm more focused on my hobbies and also being healthy, going for walks, doing my yoga and things like that. And I'm not saying that this will stay like this forever. It's always shifting and some things just play a bigger part than the others. And this is something that you can also think about after our session today as in what are the areas in your life that are super important to you right now? And what are the areas that you can overlap with on. So if we look at um comparing the balance and integration, so imbalance is about really like separating the personal, personal life and um work life.

But in integration, we're trying to find out how they work with one another, how they influence each other and what are the overlaps to make us really more fulfilled, you know, rather than trying to chase to have like a clear and equal uh separation and equal proportions and in balance, it's really more about thinking in terms of time.

So how much time I spend at work, how much time I spend on the things that I want to do as if work would not be something that you want to do. Again, that's something that you should think about. If you're actually in the right spot where you enjoy uh doing what you like and in integration, it's not as much about what time it takes. What, what would be the best time to do these things. So working uh with your energy, understanding, when is the, what's the part of the day that I have the most energy? Is it in the morning? Is it in the afternoon? Uh same way, is it like beginning of the week or is it end of the week? Uh And understanding what are some things that give you more energy? So this can be in terms of the work tasks that you have and what are the ones that also deplete it and looking at your calendar and thinking, well, right now I have too many things that are, um, killing my energy and then I don't have any energy left for my private life. Is there a manager or like another person in the company that you can talk to, maybe delegate some of the tasks that, you know, are not really working for you so that you can um integrate more of yourself and work with your energy to kind of keep you moving rather than stopping you or um making a personal life, not so achievable because you don't have the energy for it.

And imbalance, everything seems like a priority, everything feels super important. We want to have it all. And I think in integration, it's really more about having a specific focus and accepting that this kind of changes over time based on um what opportunities we have where in time we are uh right now uh how, how fast let's say we want to achieve our goal. Um I know for my friend and again, Nina, as I mentioned, like she wants to invest maybe now one year, two year into her business, it's kind of like her baby, right, her company. And of course, this will be her focus at the moment, but that doesn't mean that she will not start a family possibly at one point or she will want to focus more on uh developing her hobbies although as I mentioned, uh work is like a big part of her interest and now if you're thinking, so that sounds kinda interesting.

Or where can I start thinking more about integration and how I can combine my private self with my work self? Uh Let's look at it like one by one. First part is of course, self-awareness. So, trying to understand what are my personality traits. Um and am I utilizing them at work or are there some where I want to improve? And therefore, again, is uh my work giving me the opportunity to do so uh in terms of interest, again, is it aligned with what I'm currently doing? And we, we talked about the energy killers and energy boosters. So what are those? And how does your work week look like? Um Are you like completely done after the working day or after the working week or do you have it? Um Do you have like the chance to also include more tasks that um make your mood better and improve your energy and help you learn? Another one is focus. So as I mentioned, this will always shift based on what life throws at you and this is not good or bad. This is just how we learn, this is how we progress. So um focus is about understanding what it is that matters to me the most at the moment. Very I think I need to learn more experiment more before I move on and maybe shift my focus and what it is that is moving me closer to my actual goal.

So it can also be that right now you don't enjoy everything that you do that you realize this is how I'm getting towards who I wanna be. And last one is about really learning from your experience and understanding what do I need more of uh what are my boundaries and how to say more of nos if you're like me, I really suck at saying no. Uh But last year, which was like super packed with a lot of like preparing for a conference and mentoring and teaching and I wanted to do it all, but it allowed me to learn and understand and some of the things that I did, I don't want to do anymore. But when it comes to conferences, I for example, want to do them but not during the main summertime, not during Christmas time because that's time when I'm more focused on my relationships and spending time with the people that I love in the end. If I want to leave with you, um leave something with you, it's about doing the things that uh you want, not the things that you think you should be doing. So no matter if that's about you think that you should be aiming for work life balance. Think about what you really want to do.

If your work is your interest, just follow your path and know um if that's the focus that you're aiming for right now, uh We're really running out of time, but I just want to give you like some info what we can do next. So you can connect with me on linkedin. And you can also follow my podcast where I speak about um similar topics to the one we covered today. And since we really didn't have time to go like super in depth in the topics that we mentioned today. Uh You can message me uh on linkedin and I can send you some worksheets which could help you to. Yeah, uh try to understand if you're utilizing your interest and personality traits if you know what are your like energy killers and boosters. Um So yeah, I hope you had a good time with me today. Uh 20 minutes was like way shorter than I thought, but I'm happy that we kind of managed to run for everything and I really wish you a great time uh for the rest of the conference. Thank you guys.