.
But is there any harm in saving all the good stuff for the weekend?
The potential benefits of a mid-week adventure
Emma lives in Naarm/Melbourne and works as a content creator for a food manufacturer.
The 26-year-old says little adventures after her workdays increase her self-confidence, help her understand herself better and offer up inspiration.
“It’s reminded me that you don’t need a perfect time or a big experience to enjoy life. Instead, joy can be found in the simple everyday moments.”
Work-life balance is “something we all grapple with at different points in our lives”, says clinical psychologist Jaqueline Baulch.
Baulch says work-life balance is an issue for most of the clients she sees in some way, from burnout to wanting to spend time more intentionally.
She says incorporating activities or “little pockets of self-care” into your week can help prevent burnout.
“I think sometimes we can feel pretty tied down by our jobs and possibly even like we don’t have independence while we’re working.”
But Baulch says there are ways to “bookend” the beginning and the end of the day “or even our lunch breaks” to “take back some of that autonomy”.
Sahra O’Doherty, president of the Australian Association of Psychologists, says trying new things and shaking up our routine can be really helpful.
“If our habit is to come home, face plant on the couch and then doom scroll for hours and then go to bed and rinse [and] repeat the next day … [it] makes it harder to break that habit later on when it becomes more ingrained.”
However, she adds it depends on whether the activity is “healthy and helpful”.
Stacey Parker, an associate professor and organisational psychologist at the University of Queensland, agrees that there’s benefits to regularly spending time on hobbies, creative pursuits or physical activities.
Parker says research shows these kinds of activities can help people recover from work stress.
Stacey Parker says a physical activity or something creative can help you “detach from the demands of work”.
Stacey Parker
This is because these “daily practices” can have a positive impact on sleep, health, energy and your general sense of wellbeing, she says.
It can also have a “small positive effect” on work performance, she adds.
Why an evening doom-scroll may not be the best choice
Parker says relaxing passively — doing things like scrolling on your phone or watching back-to-back episodes of something on a streaming service — is “not necessarily bad for your recovery [from work] in the evenings, but are not good either”.
But she says activities that are challenging and require you to master something else after work are “particularly good”.
“They really help you sort of disconnect and detach from the demands of work.”
O’Doherty also says that time spent bed-rotting and doomscrolling can come at the expense of other things that help us look after ourselves.
Finding your ‘personal’ work-life balance
Baulch says when someone’s work-life balance isn’t quite right they’re “more likely to burn out and have mental health issues”.
However, she says finding that balance isn’t always easy and depends on the person.
It’s often a “real juggling act” and “not one of those set and forget things”, she adds.
While some people argue work-life balance isn’t possible, Baulch says “there are ways to operate within a window of tolerance that feels better for you”.
For some people it might be easier to compartmentalise their week into weekdays and weekends, she says.
“Everyone’s different and for some people that might be a good way to take care of themselves.”
Bauch also says that squeezing something social, active or creative in after work might create extra pressure for some.
Jacqueline Baulch says sometimes, it’s the “smaller, simpler things that make the biggest difference”.
Jacqueline Baulch
“If you’re someone who gets your energy more from being with yourself … particularly introverted people might find that it actually depletes them further doing things and so they might want to come home and just read a book or scroll.”
Parker says work-life balance is “a very personal thing”.
“Different people at different times in their life will have different priorities.”
For example, for some people work is “something they really love and get a lot of passion from” and may find it less draining.
‘It doesn’t have to be big’
Parker says doing something that is relaxing allows you to detach from work and mastering something is probably going to be the most rewarding.
Going for a run, yoga, reading a book, socialising, painting, gaming and gardening are among the things that studies have shown to be beneficial, she adds.
Baulch’s “worry” is that people might feel they have to do something exciting every night, which could potentially burn them out.
It shouldn’t be motivated by “online competitiveness”, she says. It’s not so much about what you do after work, but how it makes you feel.
Baulch recommends prioritising what energises you.
“A good question that I would ask … is, ‘what gives you energy back?'”
