Finding a sound balance between our professional and personal life is by far one of the most challenging things to accomplish. Where you are a college student, graduate student, or working in the corporate or academic realm, it is imperative to find that “sweet spot” of an ideal balance between home and work to ensure success in both domains.
For some of us, balancing work and personal life may not be terribly challenging, depending on our responsibilities in either area. For someone like myself who joined graduate school after getting married, designing my graduate school life and personal life in a way that does not overwhelm me requires more conscious efforts.
One of the first things I did when I decided to join graduate school is have a detailed discussion about my goals and aspirations with my partner. Ensuring that my partner and I are on the same page regarding certain added responsibilities and redesigning our lives made the onward path a lot smoother and hassle-free. I believe it is very important that your partner fully understands the demands of graduate school (if they have not experienced it themselves) for them to fully support you in the best way they can. In my case, my partner went to graduate school himself and was therefore very familiar with a graduate student’s life.
In the first two years of graduate school when I had to juggle classes, teaching, and research, giving sufficient time to my personal life was difficult. Again, the way I handled it was to have an honest conversation about it with my partner and reason it out that he would have to handle more of the household responsibilities than I. To make it more interesting, we had a deal that one day out of the week (usually a Sunday), I would take care of majority of the house chores and give him a little break! This served the purpose of focusing sufficiently on my work, helping out around the house and assuring my partner that I understand and acknowledge his support. During exam week(s), I would request my partner to take care of all chores until I am through exams and have some relaxed time on hand. Open communication in this regard, ensured that I would not have to compromise on my studies nor my relationship.
Today, as I am in the later stages of my PhD, with my primary focus being my dissertation research, I tried to redesign my personal life to better support my work. I make sure I contribute equally in taking care of the house as my partner also has a full-time job. Some of the ways we keep life well-balanced and fair are:
Assigning specific chores to each of us and allowing the other person to fulfil their chore-duty when they find the time. We have a spreadsheet that we maintain to keep track of chore-completion! This also keeps life more interesting, even when performing mundane tasks.
Taking small breaks over weekends to go out hiking, biking, or some other activity that the two of us equally enjoy. This may not happen every weekend due to work commitments for the both of us, but we try to make it happen as often as possible.
Assigning ‘movie night’ once (or sometimes twice) a week where we pick a movie we’d both enjoy and take out a couple of hours from our evenings to watch it together. I often view this break as a little ‘reward’, which keeps me motivated and makes me work extra hard at work to really enjoy this time I get to spend with my partner.
Picking some chores that we can do together. For example, we typically vacuum our apartment, sort through our old things that we would like to donate and go grocery shopping together. We easily spend several hours together like this and make these mundane activities more fun!
Ultimately, having a well-balanced personal and academic life as a married person depends a lot on how understanding and supportive your partner is of your career goals. If you and your partner are on the same page, you will lead a healthy and balanced life pretty much by default! I have always believed that one must never compromise on any domain of their lives, be it personal or professional. Restructuring life to accommodate all your life goals will certainly make the journey much more rewarding. I wish you all the very best as you embark on your new journey at the University of Michigan. Welcome and Go Blue!
Written by Gayatri Iyer
Summer Orientation Peer Advisor
Graduate Student
India
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