Adeleke Alao – Lagos, Nigeria

I specialise in Energy and Project Finance. In terms of peculiarities and within the context of “work- life balance”, it has proven to be a very demanding practice, especially for someone like me who mostly services foreign clients across different time zones. What this means is that I am often permanently in work mode for many hours everyday.

The concept of work-life balance is very subjective. For me, I would have achieved a work-life balance when on most of my everyday life, I get my job done satisfactorily and at the same time I am able to do other things that are not necessarily work related in a way that one does not affect the other, significantly.

I do not believe that there is a point where one can say that work-life balance has been achieved. It is a continuous process of ensuring that for most days, one continually attends to work demands without depriving other important aspects of one’s life of what is necessary. To this extent, I believe that work-life balance is possible.

Everyday, I strive to see that my work does not significantly impact on other important aspects of my life, and vice versa. To achieve this, I deploy my time management skills and ensure that I prioritise my tasks effectively. That said, impromptu demands arise from time to time which may disrupt my plans for a particular day. I try as much as possible to adjust my schedule to accommodate these impromptu demands and ensure that I get back on track regarding my daily activities. Ultimately, there are periods where work can just be overwhelming and I would have little or no control over my time. During that period, I try to soldier through and find a way to ensure that it is not protracted for too long that permanent damage is caused to other aspects of my life.

As mentioned above, there is no single point where one can say that work-life balance has been achieved. It is a continuous process. Also, one person’s way of coping with a particular situation may not necessarily work for others. Therefore, I will say that everyone should look inwards and develop their unique means to achieve a state of mental and physical well being. At first, one must decide on what is important. What can and cannot be sacrificed in one’s life. It is this decision that guides how to find a balance between work and life.

Barring natural laws, there are no permanent rules to life. People should do whatever they believe works for them, provided that another person is not hurt in the process. I have come to find out that there are people whose life is the work itself and that is fine. For such people, they may find it difficult to understand what the work-life balance fuss is all about.