You don’t have to choose between work or life.

Largely inspired by Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s mindful productivity newsletter, issue 198.

You don’t have to choose

Many people have the viewpoint that it’s work or personal life, and that the two cannot healthily coincide together.

A lot of people say that they’re taking a gap year to focus on themselves, or they sacrifice their personal happiness in hopes of getting a big work promotion.

It seems that there’s this constant choice that we all have to make between personal growth and professional growth. If you want a promotion, you’ll have to sacrifice your personal development. Conversely, if you want to take better care of your health, you’ll have to cut down and disconnect from work.

While this is the view that many people have in today’s society, is it the truth?

The finite mental energy myth

Willpower has been likened to a muscle — the more you use it, the more tired you are and therefore unable to exert the same level of effort and focus on subsequent tasks. It’s as if you’ve used all the willpower you have, and you just don’t have the energy to do anything else — this phenomenon is known as ego depletion.

Many people believe that, the more we use our brain during work, the less mental energy we’ll have for other tasks — we’ll have less energy for socialising, for completing important side projects and just generally…