Pick One: Balance vs. Integration

Hannah Moyer
8 min readApr 22, 2019

This is for the side-projecting, hustle loving creative who isn’t sure how they’re going to keep everything going. Who hears about that infamous term, “work/life balance” but isn’t sure what exactly that means or how to get there.

When conversations turn to the infamous work/life balance idea, people begin to squirm. Often because they don’t feel like they’re good at it. I sure do. It’s time to rethink it, though, because the more appropriate term is work/life integration. This is the idea where some days life requires more than 50% and others require 80% going towards work.

It is possible to have a fulfilled life in both work and life, but it takes work. My goal is to help you begin to determine what can stay, what can take a larger or smaller role in life, and what may need to be set aside for the time being. Before we get to that though, I want to review why I use the term “integration” instead of “balance”.

Work/Life Integration

When we consider balance vs. integration, we need to rethink the traditional, often overused idea of balancing life and work. The scale will very rarely, if ever, truly balance out to 50/50, work and life. Your relationship with creativity and work is like any other relationship. Some weeks your spouse, partner, or roommate can do more to take care of the home and life tasks in general, while other weeks they’re trying to get everything done and you need to step up to more than “your” 50%.

Some weeks will require that more of your energy goes towards life, and I can’t emphasize enough that it’s okay to acknowledge it and listen to that gut feeling. It could be someone in your community needing your help, family coming into town, or just a few days catching up on everything that got pushed back while working on your goal. In order to make this work, then, you’ll need a more work-heavy week before or after to make up for it.

Or, let’s explore the opposite. You’re trying to launch a big project and some glitches keep happening. Those few days will require longer hours, less time for community, and less time for self-care. Those are also the days we…

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Hannah Moyer

Creativity builder | Writer & Speaker | Nashville ➡️ OC | Fueled by coffee & almond butter.