The Power of Flexibility: A Happier, More Productive You

As person of habit, any change in my daily schedule aside from what I already planned ahead is going to affect me a lot. I believe life is meant to be simple and I try my best to make life simple for myself. For instance, I know that I like to have a time for some stuff I do and so I make sure to schedule a time for them during the week. Weekends are my resting day but sometimes I have to attend to some other stuff which makes me so frustrated.😂

Speaking of work, you probably know that I’m a teacher. Teaching is one though job but it’s fun aside all the stress it comes with. At work, I have different schedules every month depending on the number of classes or blocks my department has to coordinate. There are times where I’m free for a whole week and all I have to do it grade papers and hand out assignments to students.

And then, there are times I have no rest. It’s just back to back lectures, practicals , tutorial sessions and many more. Sometimes , I even have to handle some other stuff for my bosses when they are busy. Knowing myself, I try my best to know my schedule for the week ahead of time so I can work my way around other stuff. I love to have a work-life balance and I hate to be consumed in my work all the time even though sometimes I just can’t help it.

My bosses at work know that I keep a daily and weekly schedule and so they try their best to not mess it up. Most of the time when projects come up, they ask me what my schedule looks like and if I can make some time to help then with this and that. It’s not like I really have a choice but it’s nice to have considerate people as my superiors although there’s always an exception.

I remember this one time one of my bosses just came to dump about 400 exam papers on my table one early Monday morning and asked that I mark, record and send him the results by Wednesday and that was after he asked if he could get them on Tuesday. This person was someone I didn’t even want to have to work with but since he is in my department I didn’t really have a choice. I spent the whole of Monday marking and at the end of the day, I couldn’t even do anything for myself which made me frustrated. The next day, I marked a few and kept the remaining for the next day. I was not going to kill myself for someone else. Eventually, I used a week and a half to mark and record everything and he didn’t even complain. I then asked myself what all the pressure was for.

I hate to have work piled up, so I prefer to have everything done before I can even go on to do other stuff. But being in an environment like this, I learnt to cluster tasks and pick the most important ones to do first before any other thing , giving me a flexible routine. Currently, things are just the way I want them to be. A bit busy yet productive and not too demanding. No one is on my neck trying to mess up my perfectly planned nerdy schedule and that’s more than I could ask for. For me, this is my way of having a balance between my work life and personal life. For my personal life, I plan just a few stuff and the rest is for chilling and relaxing. As simple as that!

all images belong to me.