 To begin with, it is important to set clear boundaries between work and personal time. This means defining your work hours and sticking to them as much as possible while also setting aside time for personal activities and responsibilities. This can look like scheduling time for exercise, spending time with family and friends, posturing hobbies and interest, and taking time to relax and recharge. Work-life balance is the goal and it is typically defined as the amount of time we spend doing your job versus the amount of time we spend with loved ones or posturing personal interests and hobbies. So today we are asking, how can we become more intentional about balancing work and personal life? Please let's say what you have to say. Remember, you can join the conversation, send us an SMS or WhatsApp to 081 80384663. You could also tweet at us or thread us at WeShowAfrica1 with the hashtag WeShow. Who am I going to start with? What do you want me to say? What do you think? So I think work-life balance is very, very important. You cannot overemphasize the benefits and the consequences if you don't find the balance to that. Sometimes you have people even down to health, it is very, very important for you to create a balance between your work and your personal life. And that would include, depending on the kind of person you are, that would include having other activities, whether sporting, leisure, like you rightfully mentioned, time with family and friends, time to catch up and all that. So I feel like it's very, very important for us to create that balance in your life. Sometimes we just get caught up in the hustle and we just work and work and work and then eventually it starts telling you on your health, you're not feeling well all the time, you have to go to the hospital now, you're dealing with your health and work. Or you lose time with friends, you lose time with family. And I think for all of us at some particular point in time, we've all been through that. You've been so focused on work that you've lost something along the way. I have experienced that and I had to now make a conscious effort to always create some level of balance because I believe in work hard, play harder. Because the more restful you are, the more your brain is able to articulate and run efficiently and that's the word. So I think it's very, very important. Jenny? So like what you've said, my question is, let's just bring it home a little bit. Now balance means even distribution. So basically when you have a skill and they're asking for balance, it means that they have to stay on the same level. Now my question is, what amount of balance are we doing in work 50, personal life or play 50 or is it supposed to be 70, 30, 80, 20? Because I feel like sometimes people really cannot tell the difference. Sometimes people do 90% of work and 10% of play. Some don't even have any space to play at all. You know sometimes when you hear these so-called very rich or famous people, right, who have amassed so much wealth and then when they're having conversations they tell you, oh I didn't have time for this. I wake up at 4am. I go to bed by this time. Half past. Do you understand? So in my head when I hear things like that I'm like, okay, so when do you breathe, right? When do you take time out to actually live life? I understand they need to want to work for a long time, especially when you have like really massive goals that you want to meet, but at what point do you say, you know what? I want to rest. I want to take time for myself to just be, right? I want to spend time with family. I mean we've heard people, even in marriages or relationships where people say, oh my spouse doesn't have time for me because they work a lot. You hear someone say, oh I'm burnt out, right? And that's because you're working all the time. You have a lot on your plate and then you've not had time to actually distress. So what amounts, right, do we allocate to work? What amounts do we allocate to play? So I'm trying this question out to everybody. I personally, I don't believe in work-life balance and I'll tell you why. But let me hear from Noma first. Noma. All right. Yeah, Tuna, can you hear me? Yes, yes. Please go ahead. All right, so just continue from where Jennifer stopped. Work-life balance, how you decide to distribute your time, how you decide to distribute your energy across different areas of your life. And in as much as you want to spread it evenly, there are some that may suffer depending on what stage or what season you are in life. So it's very important, but before we even get there, you want to know what are the aspects, what areas of my life should I pay attention to. And that's part of the things that you, when evaluating work-life balance in anybody's life, one of the first things you want to do is to know what are those areas in my life that I want to be able to accord some level of importance to. So for some people, for me personally, when I'm thinking balance, I'm thinking balance in my spiritual life. I'm thinking balance in my physical life. I'm thinking about mental balance. I'm thinking about emotional. I'm thinking about social balance. These are the important aspects of my life. So what am I doing to be spiritually uplifted, right? If that is important to me. What am I doing physically to make sure that my heart rate is pumping and my organs are functioning properly? Maybe it's about eating well, my choice of meal. When I choose to eat that meal and the exercises that I want to put in place. If I'm talking about my mental balance, what knowledge am I adding to myself that keeps me informed, keeps me updated? Now I'm not going to spend all day trying to be knowledgeable because I'm not Einstein or I'm not creating something out of this world. But I just need enough information to be able to interact intelligently and to be able to have conversations or to be able to function in everyday experience whether it's at work or personal experience. And then emotionally, what am I doing to keep myself motivated every single day? If I'm talking about social interaction, what community am I building around myself to help me to continue to function at the level that I continue to bring in some level of success or people that are championing. So what communities am I, what am I intentionally doing to add to some of these areas? Because at some point or the other, one might suffer. Now, if I have a community and maybe I'm not showing up as I would normally show up maybe mentally or physically, somebody is going to call me and ask me a question. Like, Noma, how are you doing? What's going on? You're not looking as well. Are you exercising? Or somebody, I'm going to be somewhat accountable to somebody. And that's because I have intentionally put in systems or structures that are helping me to achieve that when I can't help myself. So these are things that also when you're talking about work life, but you don't want it to be this situational where I detach from that I just do when I am, when everybody's looking, right? But it's not part and parcel of my experience every single day because until it becomes part and parcel of who you are every single time, that's when you find out that it's easier for you, even when your experience is born out, it's easier for you to be able to work it out one way or the other because you have support. You have these things in place that help you to accomplish that. So it's something that a lot of us need to intentionally imbibe. If you are not thinking about it, it's not going to come to you naturally. It's not going to just breathe in and become part and parcel of you that you're bad. It's something that you have to deliberately put in something to remind you or to help you or to motivate you to keep making progress at. Very true. Thank you very much, Noma. I think that speaks to what I was going to say, right? So there's nothing wrong with work-life balance. But you see, that's the problem, like what you said. When how do you then say, oh, I'm allocating this percent of times to work. I'm allocating this percent of times to my hobbies and my interests, pursuing my passion and, you know, all of those other things. And that's why I believe in work-life integration. So I would say integration. Yes, because it fuses everything, like Noma said. So you're not saying, oh, you're not waiting to you start to feel so mentally drained and I said, I need a vacation. I am going on that too with vacation. No, in picture of this, right, you have a nine to five. You're allocated leave days per year. I mean, what happens to saying, OK, maybe I want to spread my leave days and then maybe take three days every month or however it is, depending on the organization that you work with. Or what if you start practicing, maybe like flexible schedules at work and things like that? A lot of people work from home or practice the hybrid or the remote work system now. So in the middle of the day, you are doing something else that you know is outside of work and not waiting till it's five p.m. or five to three p.m. When you shut your laptop close to then leave your life. I don't know if you understand what I'm saying. So I completely believe in work-life integration as opposed to work-life balance because it's a work-life balance thing. It's very confusing sometimes. And I realize that most people get the points where they are so burnt out before they then decide to take a break. And then you realize that you then take that break, what, one week, seven days? It's never enough. And then you are back to that system and then it's back to back to back again. So you now feel burnt out. So I strongly believe in integrating your work and your life. So that's my own take on. Well, very something you once said, right, when there are some points in your life, there's a stage in your life where you have to give more to something, right? I know that there are times when I've set, set some setting goals. And I know that, you know what, for this one month or for the next two months, I'm going to give 80 percent to work because I'm also doing personal development, I'm doing career development, right? And I'm working and I'm all my life. I've always been working on different things, right? So there are sometimes I know that, oh, I have to something has to give something has to suffer. So either my social life has to suffer, right? But I have to focus on work. The kind of job that I do on my role currently, even eight p.m. clients are sending me messages, right? They want me to do some things. I work with a product team and always liaison with the engineers and the product manager and stuff like that. There's always integration ongoing. So basically like almost like a project manager role. So in situations like that, if I get a message by eight p.m., something isn't working, we need to fix it. I'm sorry, I have to call my engineer. However, if you can't do it, though, if you can't just let me know, right? We need to give feedback. If you can't do it, we just push it till tomorrow morning. I mean, the client should be able to understand. But in situations like that, I don't completely just shut down and say that I cannot because at the end of the day, I don't want things to go wrong. But then there are times when work is quite slow. Then I don't have a lot on my table. Then I know that, OK, yes, time for personal time. I can fix in one thing or the other. But I know I took a decision. I think it was two, three years ago and I told myself, you know what? It's not going to be all work for me. I'm always going to infuse some form of pleasure into this, right? Because I want to live long. Of course. And I'm not trying to die, right? I want to be able to have fun once in a while with friends and family, take care of myself, just be by myself. And I mean, again, it depends on what your goal is. But I think it's also it's also important to be able to draw that line. Because I feel like sometimes you find some people who attach more importance to pleasure than work, especially when you're working with an employer. So if you're being employed, you can't use that system, right? Of course. Something will suffer. It means that your job will suffer and it doesn't make sense when you're being paid to do something and you're not able to deliver. So just imagine if you have your own business, what happens? Your business will suffer. You're going to be broke and you're not going to be able to take any holiday. OK, let's take a short break. And when we come back, we'll open up online. See you shortly. If you're just tuned in to our ladies' night out and we're discussing the topic balancing work and personal life, please let's hear what you have to say. Remember, you can join the conversation. Send us an SMS or WhatsApp to 0818384663. You could also tweet at us at Weshawafika1 with the hashtag Waze Show. Our phone line is now open. Please call us on 07025007749. The number again is 07025007749. So, I mean, so now let's talk about what measures or what ways people can actually balance or integrate. Integrate. Integrate. How we can integrate work and personal life, right? Well, when you say integration, OK, so I like to use myself as an example. So I believe in work harder, work hard, play harder. And I believe strongly, believe that life is for the living. So for me, while I'm at work, I'm at work. I hardly do social media that like I don't have the time for that. But as soon as work ends, every other thing begins. And for me, I do a lot of things because, first of all, I have high energy. So I always have to find an outlet. So for me, I do different things. Some if I want a lighter day, I do salsa. I do I play tennis. I do a whole lot of other adventurous things. I love to travel and a couple of things. So for me, when you even say personal life, it's there's a whole lot even in there. Even your personal development is within that personal life. So you always have to create time for everything and be able to measure it appropriately. Like, you know, people always wonder, like for me, I knew I know that during the day I might work and work doesn't end till evening. And sometimes I have some other, you know, engagements that I have to I have previously committed to. So sometimes in order to play tennis, I have to now play at night. You know, so sometimes you have to just arrange your lifestyle in such a way that you're able to accommodate as much as you can within that space, which would include your walk life, attending to your walk life and attending to your personal life. So if you have hangouts, you have to, you know, you can go. I can't say because I want to balance or integrate my life. I would just play tennis all through have my friends. So I could you know, time management now comes into play and planning. So I can say for me, if I have, you know, certain things to do, like as we speak after here, we have, you know, so you just have to and I still have work in the morning. So I still have to put that in mind even while I'm enjoying out and enjoying myself. So I still have to plan all that because you can't say because of that, you know, you're going to lose out on certain relationships like a birthday party or friends, graduation or something. You miss out on all that information and things, events like that don't come back. So once you miss it, you miss it out. So you have to be able to plan all that within your personal life and still be able to plan your personal development and improvement. And in other areas you want to travel. You still want to do that. You still want to be able to read. Maybe you've given yourself, excuse me, you've given yourself a certain target. You want to read social amount of books in the year and or you want to go through the Bible. If it's a spiritual growth that you're after. So you set different targets for yourself. I remember when about a year and half, no, two years ago, I was working in a different location and I was getting frustrated at work and I was looking for an outlet and I kept looking for it. And when I meant an outlet, I just got tired of doing, running the same circle of coming to work, demotivated. You go through the eight hours and after that, you know, you get home and it's just like, OK, how did your day go off like another day gone? So I needed something to excite me. So that generates the motivation to go to work the next day. And then, you know, I started playing tennis a bit more and I found that that each time I did that, I go home so exhausted that I was just tired, just take a shower, sleep, wake up in the morning and you're like, OK, OK, OK, you know, let's do this again. You understand? And over time, that became a lifestyle for me because now I know myself and I know that even when I'm happy, I do want to do play tennis. Even when I'm upset, I want to play tennis. And I found out that most of the time when I'm done with that exercise, I'm so exhausted that I do not even have the mental. You know, where we talk to actually think about, OK, what was that problem we had initially? Do you understand? So for me, that was an outlet. And each time it just lets me let off that steam. And I think it's very, very important for us to always create an outlet because with the way things are going now, the situation of the country, you can't cry. I'm tired of crying. I don't have tears. You can't shout, OK, even if you shout, it's not going to change the situation of things. So it's best for you to find a way within your personal space to be able to manage your emotions so that you can go on. That's the whole idea. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to find ways of surviving and moving on. And in order to do that, you can, you know, just box yourself into one work. You can't even focus on work because even that in itself is frustrating. So you have to give it time and plan properly. To time management and plan properly. Thank you, Angie. Jenny. Yule, I wanted to pick up tennis at some point. I played tennis with Uwabu once. Uwabu? Yes. You know, Uwabu is a very funny individual. Bless the individual. That was the decade ago. Yes. You are a very funny individual. Uwabu picks up things part-time, you know. And then what is that she doesn't drop to like go on to the next? So, but it's interesting, you know, at least there are lots of things that she has picked up. She hasn't dropped. So those are the ones that give her passion. So these are the ones that she gets to drop at the play, personal play time, the life balance. Actually, you know for me, right, the way I've been able to strike balance. I mean, over the years, I always pick up things as well. I'm almost like, well, just that's, there's some things that I see, I see through, right? So I love to walk out. Walking out is very painful, right? But that's the only way that I know how to release stress. Right? There are days or weeks where my spirit is just down. Because I go to the gym and I'm coming back. I'm just pumped. I'm pumped. Okay. I think we have a caller. Loman. Hello, Loman from Abia. Good evening. Hello. Okay. I think we lost Loman. Yeah. I picked up Salsa, but then that was, that was early 2022 while I was still in Abuja. But then I dropped that as well. Because for that it was because I didn't find people who, who, yeah, who shared the same interest. And it was a new city for me, right? So I didn't have a lot of friends to go with. By the time you get there, you're just alone. But then there were other things that I picked up. I picked up boxing. There are times that I just, sometimes, so I love my friends because sometimes we don't necessarily have to step out of the house. Are you home? Yes. Unless you watch this movie. Same here. And you're just sitting together and you're just having a good time. Just eating, drinking and laughing and just just thinking about random things. And sometimes we have like impromptu games nights. Of course. Right? Oh, I just got this new game. Do you want to come play? Oh, invite this person, invite this person. And for me, that's the only way that I can actually distress, right? Because while I'm there, I'm not thinking about anything, right? I just want to spend time with my people and just have fun. And if people can find other ways to have these outlets, it would be really, really helpful. Okay, I think Loman is back. Hi, Loman. Good evening. Yeah, good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening, Loman. Well done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Today's topic is how we can put down to planning. Yeah. If you plan to plan something. Well, before you know it, if you don't plan to plan something, you can walk and walk and walk. So you know it, press and press it. That's why you see some people die in their workplace. Because the trust is right there of your personal life. Sure. Now, I want to let you know, one man, one town water, I used to know in Nigeria, from this part of our state, from how you say, you take a lot of plans on your own side and not be an emergency on my side. So what we need to do in order to plan something, you don't overwork yourself. Make sure you take care of your life. Otherwise, your work will be there and you'll lose your life. Very, very true. Thank you very much. Very well said. Thank you so much, Loman. Thank you. All right, so quickly, Loman. So just while you were having the conversation, I remembered the news flash that I saw about the trekker town in Lagos, about people having to walk to different parts of Lagos, either to work or this is because the transport system is challenged at this point. And I said something like that, you can turn it into an opportunity. I remember when the pandemic happened in 2020. For me, my distress is taking long walks. I can walk for two hours and I do not feel it at all. Once I have my headphones, my music, or some message or some, I'm just listening to something, I would not even know that I'm on the road. I'll just keep walking until the pandemic happened and we were, you know, boxed in our houses without our permission, so to speak. And it was like, okay, I'm not going to be able to achieve this, but I love to walk. What did I do? Somehow in my mind, because it was something that had become part and parcel of me, and like NJ said, a lifestyle, which is very important. I created ways, so my staircase became my walk path. I would walk in my living room, walk around it, walk downstairs around the compound, things like that. And I was still able to make up the quota, you know, my number of steps for the day, so to speak. And then you become creative, you start from, because it is some, and it goes back to what I had said initially about values, about what have we made our values? If something is important to you, you will find a way. If your health is important to you, a lot of times where we struggle with these things is because we have not given it the commensurate meaning in our lives. So you can trade your life for several hours of work without getting up at some point, deciding, you know what, I've had enough. If I continue like this, I'm gonna have a headache. Let me stretch, let me walk downstairs, get something, or come up, do something, let blood flow in my system, because I want to live long. Jennifer said, I want to live long. How intentional are you being by putting systems that help you to live long? It's not just something that you say in your mouth and say that it happens. You have to be able to put some people. So what are you doing? You have association, you have friends. When you call them, they are able to, because they understand that that is value. It is not a waste of time. Some people say, oh, they're wasting time. But you know, because it's important to you, you can say no at work. You can actually say, between this time and this time, that is when I'm going to be productive. After this number of hours, I need my space. And you know, I can function optimally, and you can engage, you can dialogue for hours that can help you to be productive at work. But some people, because of fear, oh, you know the culture in Nigeria too, that when you're working for long hours, or you don't go before your boss, you seem to be working hard, or maybe now that we're in remote working setting, you see people, they're trying to, they're showing that they're online, but you're not you yourself, you know that you are not available, right? Mentally you have shut down. So all of those things are things that you need to put in place. It is very, very important that you do that. Even where I am, I turned my prayer time to a work time. So while I'm praying, I'm also exercising and I'm working. Before I'm finished, I'm done with my 10,000 steps and the dates not even started. So it's the mindset in which you use and the value that you place in different aspects of your life, that is how it will show up in the quality of time and energy you direct to each of those aspects. Very profound, you know my, I like what she said there. When something is important to you, you will definitely find it. That's what I have realized, you know? When we say, at some point in my life, people are like, don't fight as you guys are always hanging out here. And truth is that it's not a thing we're particularly going anywhere. As a matter of fact, most times in the house, thank God for Netflix. I tell you what I mean. We just plug the, what they call it, the laptop with HDMI, plug is the television. And watch. And we watch Netflix and drink a bottle of wine, whatever it is. If you want to eat out that day, you know? Just have a couple of people over, play card games and by the time, by Saturday morning, when everybody wakes up, isn't everybody just feeling a lot better, you know, from that whole, that long week? So it's not like you don't necessarily have to do when you go out of your way to, you know, say you want to have fun. Look at us talking about paint bowling today now. That's not that way. In fact, that's a very good way to distress. And we'll say you need to go paint. You might sustain some injuries. You will sustain injuries. Let me name that disclaimer. You will sustain injuries. But trust me, your heart would even thank you for it because you're going to do some exercise that you will not feel like it is exercise. You were thinking about the workplace, right? One thing that I miss my previous workplace for is the fact that between 12 p.m. and 1.30 p.m., they put out the lights and you're allowed to sleep. Are you serious? Go ahead, eat, sleep, watch movies, do whatever you want to do in that world. Every day. Wow. They don't miss it. And each person, you're given a small bed, right? So you bring it out. People bring it out and put it by their work table and then just sit down or you sleep. And you're not allowed to make noise, right? So if you want to have conversations, just go outside the office and then do a lot of that. But it is quiet, the lights are off. In that, see, during that 1.30 p.m., your boss can't even call you in for a meeting. Trust me. Your boss will tell you, oh, we're having a meeting. You can tell your boss, ah, it's lunchtime. It's good time. Let's, I think. And they will just respect us. I would suggest that. I'm sorry. We have any comments. It would be quite good for bosses to look into things like that. When I first joined, I really wasn't practicing it because it was really weird to me. I don't want to experience culture shock. Until I realized that I started, that was a big culture shock for me. Of course. So during the lunch break, people were sleeping, people were resting. I started having to have migraine. By 3.00 p.m., 4.00 p.m., I was already having migraine. And one of my senior colleagues came to tell me, I noticed that you don't take this one at 30 minutes. Make sure you seize your portion and take it. Since then, I stopped having migraine. So when it comes to, you just mentioned culture shock and I remembered something. So my previous place of work, my first day at work was an experience. So I got to the office. You know, your first day of work is supposed to be really light. And then I get to the office and I think I finished about 5.00, 5.30. And I was looking at my boss, oh, can I go home? And he looked at me in a funny way. I ended up going home at, I think at 8.30 that day. What? And subsequent for the next five years, that was around my closing time. But then I got to my new office and then by 6.00 o'clock, I was locked inside the office. And I couldn't get out. I had to call my boss to please tell the security that there's still somebody inside the office. So when it comes to culture shock, there's actually, but like we rightfully know, there just has to be some level of balance to it. That's the major thing. Okay, so this comment says, Nigerians don't take holidays seriously. And for those that travel, some really don't go on vacation. They only go on a shopping spree. Is it as a result of our economic realities? We don't know, so maybe we need to ask Buddha to go on shopping sprees instead of vacationing. No, we're saying that. I actually agree. There's a lot of people who go on vacation and they don't take out time to rest. They don't even go sightseeing. You don't rest. Is that any other comment? None, none, none from here. How about you? None from here. Okay, I think it's been a great conversation tonight. Noma, do you have any comments? Yes, I do have one. This is from Ilu, Daniel. And he says, my dear beautiful sisters of what are you saying, hashtag ways. Balsam work and personal life, according to my dear beautiful sister, Jenny, says that we need to balance time and energy, which is very correct. We need to give our time for both because two of them cannot come at the same time. When Balsam, both of them, we need to add supportive system. There is the saying that goes that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. According to Loman, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. You ladies look beautiful tonight. I really missed you, Chinelo, anchoring the show. Nice having you back. Thank you. Okay, so before we go, do ensure you follow us on Instagram, at Weshaw Africa. You can interact with us further, drop a comment, and most importantly, follow all our social media engagement. And remember to like, share, comment, and invite your friends and family to watch us and follow us. If you missed this course, here it is again. Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make 11. This is by Dolly Parton. See you tomorrow at 8 PM. I'm gonna be on the sits right there tomorrow as we bring another conversation to your screen. Good night. Thank you, ladies.