Invest in Your Well-Being

Investing in Your Future

In our day, phrases like “treat yourself” have become commonplace. “Self-care” is now a buzzword, evoking good or bad associations depending on your background and perspective.

This word has also divided many in the knowledge work sector. For some, the concept of self-care has articulated a strongly felt need for rest from all the burnout of the contemporary hustle culture that dominates so many spheres of work in the west. For others, it seems trivial and even silly; why waste time on “self-care” when you can instead direct that focus toward productivity?

And for knowledge workers and entrepreneurs, this is a perfectly reasonable question. Sometimes, in our internet culture that so often emphasizes self-care, we can easily fall into the trap of neglecting our work. Ironically, this can often make the problem significantly worse instead of better. When we allow the call to engage in self-care to breed procrastination, we can make our workload exponentially larger. And inevitably, this produces burnout.

At the same time, it does seem like the modern hustle culture has proved an untenable and unsustainable approach to accomplishing high-quality work without burning out. To avoid the excesses of both of these work styles, I want to suggest that we reframe how we think about the way we spend our time. Rather than creating a stark division between “work” and “life,” we might think about our time as opportunities for investment.

Making Wise Investments

When a person invests in profitable assets wisely and consistently, they will gain more and more benefits for themselves in the future. Generally, investing in the economic world is done for long-term gain rather than with only the short-term in view. And this, I think, is a helpful way to start looking at our lives so that we can begin to find the healthy balance that allows us to work productively but without burnout.

Whenever we choose to spend our time doing some task, we should think of it as an investment in our future selves. Working on a productive task will result in real progress toward some goal. Taking time to get the proper amount of sleep and to exercise will make us healthier and able to sustain the challenges of life. Choosing to relax or spend time with friends and family will boost our mood and make us happier and more motivated to do good work.

The advantage to thinking in terms of investment is that it avoids the trap of compartmentalizing our lives. The problem with the so-called “work/life balance” is that it subtly suggests to us that work and life are two different things to be separated from one another at all costs. But work is part of life. The goal is not necessarily to work less, but to ensure that we invest our time wisely. For some, this might mean spending more time in deep, productive work without procrastinating. For others, this might mean focusing more on attending to basic physical human needs such as diet, sleep, and fitness. For still others, investing in their well-being might mean picking up some new hobbies that will capture their interest and reinvigorate their joy and creativity.

So assess the portfolio of your life and begin to think about what investments you might make. Your future self will thank you.