The Coronavirus has given many us an opportunity to pause and think about life, our purpose, and even the right work life balance. What’s your perspective and has it changed over time?

Janelle Holter | Female Entrepreneur & Managing Partner TVLA YOGA, LLC

2021: The year of “Life // Work” Balance At the top of 2020 I was fully submerged in the “glorification of busy”. In January, I bounced between Denver, DC, San Francisco, and LA – never really landing on a solid sleeping schedule and eating out more than I would like to admit. Each month was a game of Tetris for my boss at the time and I – figuring out how only two people could provide “in-person” support to nearly 200+ yoga studios and assist with the opening of news ones in the pipeline. It wasn’t out of the question to catch me at Denver International Airport before the sun would rise Monday morning and catch me coming home, well after dark, later in the week. Looking back, balance to me was getting a daily workout in. It was that simple. Some days it was a B-I-G ask, for many reasons. I was tired. I was jet lagged. I had a pile of emails from the day that I didn’t tend to because I was being present with our studio teams. I was hungry. You name it, I probably thought it. Now, everything is different. Read more>>

Erin Hornstein | Owner, Plum Sage Flowers

Work life balance is an ever-changing scale. Over the last decade both my life and my business has expanded and balance has shifted accordingly. Today, my workflow changes focus daily between my family and my company depending upon current events. I think of balance as not a give and take but as a culmination of energy, effort, awareness and self care. Read more>>

Taylor Marvin | Audio Engineer/Freelance Musician

A career in the music industry, particularly studio work, tends to mean a lot of late nights and irregular hours. As a freelancer it’s tough to turn down work and set aside time for yourself, but it’s been a big focus of mine over the last few years. I’ve learned to prioritize time for myself just as much as a recording session or gig. That can mean setting aside a busy summer week for a backpacking trip, or just keeping Wednesday nights open to play board games with friends. Read more>>

Dave Taylor | Digital Storyteller, Teacher And Dad

Like so many entrepreneurs, balancing work and the rest of my life is a challenge. There are times when I work for a few hours each day – or take a week or two off entirely – but there are also other times when I’m putting in a solid 8-10 hours per day, 7 days a week. What’s great, though, is that I have infinite flexibility, so when my children were younger, I would schedule my time so post-school afternoons were always free. From 2pm 6pm or so, I was never available for calls, meetings, presentations, etc. Now I find that with increasingly savvy utilization of automation I can put in fewer hours to free up my time and schedule, even as it appears I’m working all hours of every day. Read more>>

Jessica DeHart | Writer, Wife, Mom, and Life-Lover.

As I strive for life satisfaction, I find that a Work-Life balance is not necessarily the most important ingredient. Something much, much more important trumps any desire for such a balance, and it’s this: Magic. Sure, I spend the first hour of every Sunday morning planning the week ahead. Then, during the work week, while enjoying my quiet morning coffee before the noisy world wakes up, I time-block my entire day down to the minutia of flossing my teeth at night. I have always etched out this time for planning, only I’m not exactly sure why. I suppose I plan because I like the idea of work-life balance. Or maybe as a way to stave off chaos, given that I was reared in a tumultuous household that inadvertently instilled in me a lifelong desire for structure and predictability. Before every new year, I purchase my calendar in October. I would never wait until January–just incase the world happens to run out of calendars. Read more>>

Anthony Chavez | Photographer

Overtime I’ve gone from the regular school, work, and then work on your dream schedule and mindset, with plenty Of lazy days to count. Once the switch in my mind occurred I quit my job I dropped out of school and focus fully on my career. I do & don’t believe in balance, but I believe what you put in is what you’re going to get out of it and I wanted a lot. Overtime I ended up sacrificing so much of my personal life that I started to find myself almost 80% work and 20% personal time. Meaning I would get up at 5 AM go to the gym or get started I’m building my plans, strategies, or in general start working on client work, just go to work. Then hen if time was available or scheduled I would be around to grab a drink, see a friend, watch a movie… I wanted to make sure that I removed myself as the X factor of why I didn’t make my dreams come true. I think the balance is understanding how you contribute to your own happiness while doing things that might not favor and what is defined as pleasure or fun. Read more>>

Sue Lion | Graphic Designer, Book Designer, Author, and Illustrator

When I decided to go back to running a full time freelance business after years of being in a big corporation as a senior designer in a visual communications department, then art director in corporate communications, I was fortunate to start with a good client and a lot of work. As the years went by, the business always came first, even though I have another business – that of my own art, book design, and illustration work. I found myself pushing my own business into the evenings and weekends, always second. But I’ve found that when I balance the freelance work for clients and my own personal work, I am happier about both. When I give my own work equal energy with freelance, the work for both is better and more satisfying. Read more>>

Matt Verges | Artist

When I first started out, it was before I had a family. I was able to work until the wee hours of the morning, and still have energy for a separate work and social life. I had more time to ruminate on ideas, research them and really flesh them out mentally. This gave me a lot of room to develop as an artist, and build a business framework to start selling my work full time. Nowadays, with kids, and having to maintain a social media presence, I don’t have nearly as much time to create. I have to be very careful to use my time wisely. For this, I try to compartmentalize as much as possible, so I can just sit down to work and get going as quickly as possible. Luckily, I laid that groundwork early on. I have a large backlog of art from earlier in my career that still sells well, and there isn’t so much pressure to put out new work all the time. I still try to create as much as possible, and I love innovating new merch for that older artwork to go on. It is nice when my work can bleed over into my family life though. I love getting to draw or paint with my kids, or explore new creative ideas with my wife. Read more>>

Waladi Ali | Visual Artist & Musical Artist

Honestly being home from college, my work and life balance has been very interesting, but required great attention and management. Seeing that I a mainly remain at my home with limited modes and reason for transportation, I continuously work on art and music, often without end. And it feels amazing to be so productive, until by body cries out for me to get up stretch and finally go make breakfast. Thankfully like any skill, you can grow to challenge and maintain it the more you work on it. Work to life maintenance for me has become more defined and exceptionally kinder to my body and mental states. Mainly what I have done has been in line with creating a schedule for myself everyday and time slots specified for work and resting, because both are equally important. In no way have I mastered this skill just yet, I’m doing fairly well, currently planning to watch a movie at the end of the day. Read more>>