It is a cliché universally acknowledged that January is the month for change and renewal … Having enjoyed a lovely break after a tiring semester, I am ready for the new term of teaching. And with that a new schedule and some thoughts on how to make sure I get my work done and don’t burn out and become too frazzled by deadlines and a range of less predictable demands on my time.
Perhaps a privilege of middle-age, I am no longer interested in some magical ‘work-life-balance’. Work is part of life, and I am very lucky to be able to work in my chosen profession and do what I love to earn a living. Nor is it about being more efficient in the sense in which various self-improvement manuals ask professionals to be ‘more productive’. These suggestions too often reduce sleep and relationships with our loved ones to a scheduling matter and cram ever more things into shorter intervals, while at the same time pointing to role models whose brutal routines are out of reach for most.
Rather, I am interested in drawing boundaries and reducing ‘guilt’ – professional as well as personal and maternal – about constantly short-changing all my relationships and pursuits. There is no magic wand to create more time or to store up time. Scheduling apps ‘steal’ time by suggesting a false sense of efficiency and ‘productivity’.
Michael Ende’s 1973 novel Momo, a childhood favourite of mine, was prescient in its description of a time-poor, relationship-poor society ruled by ‘grey men’ whose aim is to deprive humanity of what makes us human: time spent well in relationships and creatively. We cannot ‘save’ time, nor can we solely survive on notions of supposed ‘usefulness’ and worship at the altar of ‘productivity’. Instead, we need to live and work within our allotted time. Business is not the same as time-poverty. We can be time-rich and busy; having a lot to do, does not imply a lack of fulfilment in what we do. Work (that is, meaningful pursuits some of which also earn a living) or family and friends is a false choice, we need both to be and to become who we are.
Hannah Holtschneider 