What’s the right balance between work and non-work time? The traditional 9-5 has slowly disappeared with the emails and zoom and texting going far beyond traditional business hours. We asked members of our community to share with us how they think about work-life balance.

Kathleen Currie | Perfumer at Smoke Perfume and breathwork teacher

My work life balance has gotten more important to me over the years, and is something I actively work on. When it’s off, I feel it in my body, my energy level, my joy, and I can get burned out pretty quickly. It’s essential to keeping my creativity and heart-centered business style flowing! I think boundaries are so important to this balance. Read more>>

Gabriella Perez | Beauty Content Creator & Social Media Freelancer

Work life balance is actually something I had to really work on. For the first few months as a new freelancer, I just delve into my work – 24/7. I would stay up late (like really late) doing work and answering emails, and wake up the next day and do the same. I was completely burnt out. Read more>>

Jennifer Asher | Sculptor, designer

My work life balance is something that I have consciously designed so the work and life don’t conflict (most of the time). My priority has always been my family. The profession that I’ve chosen provides both great personal and creative rewards but allows me to be present for my personal life as well. Read more>>

Sorin Gabor | Artist, tattooer/creator, business owner

Work life balance seems like an appropriate topic to choose as I’m finishing this nearing 6am and tomorrow (today) is fast approaching whether I am ready for it or not. How many people, creatives, business owners, etc. are all too familiar with this? I suppose it depends on who you ask. Read more>>

Kiari Kirk | Dance Choreographer/Instructor

This is huge! 13 out of the 14 years I’ve been teaching, there wasn’t any balance. The only solution I had to reach my dreams was to work, work hard, and work harder. It’s all that I knew from the people I grew up with, and the individuals I met in my adult life. It wasn’t until the pandemic of Covid-19 and the aching pain in my right knee that I had to take a step back and re-organize my time. Now I have more time off for myself, to rest, socialize, eat, and also explore other art forms. I come back to work energized and capable of helping others the way I want to. Read more>>

Adam Dominguez | Standup Comedian & Event Production

My mom used to say, “You work, then you die.” She wasn’t always the most chipper person growing up. At one point, she was working at the attendance office of my high school, then would go to a 3am-8am shift at a Dunkin Donuts, just so I can do homework with the lights on (which wasn’t an all the time thing.) Making my mind up to be a full-time comedian and producer, I shared her sentiment and worked all day to write, produce shows in my state, advertise and market, and never saw a sustainable income until 6 years after.  Read more>>

Zoe van Dijk | Illustrator

At the beginning of my career, I had a general rule of “say yes to every job.” I would take any job offered my way, any budget, any prompt no matter how bizarre or how tenuous a fit it was for my style or what I knew how to draw. I was hungry for clients and trying to gain as much experience as fast as possible, not to mention pay my bills. Read more>>

Farina Rowland | Horse Trainer, Model

My free/chill time always has been very important for me and I try to never say NO to a get together with friends/family. BUT I think if you love what you‘re doing and you have Goals you want to reach, you won’t really feel tired or exhausted and that leaves you with more energy to actually do things even after a long work Day. I write down my long and short term goals and time block as much as I can. That allows me to stay focused on the things that I want but also visualizes how much time I spent working and when it’s Time to take a break! Read more>>

Lisa Travis | CEO No Sugar Marketing | Founder Sleaze Dolls | Yoga Instructor

As a multi-passionate entrepreneur operating three separate businesses, balance used to be the furthest thing from my mind. Even before becoming a business owner, I didn’t give balance much thought. I’ve always been more of the “hustle hard” mindset. Read more>>

Jill Lasky | Pediatric Dentist and Co-Owner of Lasky Pediatric Dental Group

As a new young pediatric dentist, I believed that I needed to put ALL my energy into my professional life. My evenings and weekends consisted of either taking care for my children’s needs or the needs of my dental practice. As a result, so much of my identity was wrapped around my successes and failures at the office. Read more>>

Karine Karadjian | Attorney and mediator

My work life balance has improved significantly since I started my own firm 5 years ago. When I worked for other law firms, typical schedules were a 50-60 hour workweek. Now, I typically aim for a 20-25 hour workweek. I think that better work life balance leads to a happier business owner, who in turn projects that positive attitude toward clients. Read more>>

Stanton Sharpe | Documentary Photographer

In my early 20’s, work was my number one, if not only, priority. I was always racing to get somewhere I couldn’t even define, and instead of taking a step back and prioritizing, I decided to double down on work. Eventually, I hit a point of burn out.  Read more>>

Pablo Rivera | Visual Development Artist

Over the last few years, the main way my work/life balance has changed is that now I actually strive to have one. I’m a recent graduate (2019) and I have to say that in school, I completely neglected having any sort of structure beyond just grinding on work as much as possible. Read more>>

Scott Flanders | Artist & Creative Director

My work life balance has changed quite a bit over the years. Specifically since my son was born. My priorities changed pretty dramatically when he came into the world. For the better too, in my opinion. Read more>>

Tryphena Wade | Actor/Writer/Certified Life Coach

Balance is something that I’ve always been keenly aware of. But I haven’t always been good at achieving a healthy balance for myself. As I’ve gotten older, gained more life experience, and moved further into my career, I’ve truly embraced the need for balance in my life. Read more>>

Luisa Novo | Filmmaker

As I get older, this question has become central to, really, my everyday life. The film industry is super fast paced, and while you work on your passion projects you have a job of freelance gigs. And they all have deadlines. It’s very hard to delineate a work and non-work time, but it’s super important that I do.  Read more>>

Ethel England | Actor & Filmmaker

Work life balance isn’t necessarily about balance. It sounds odd, I know. Hear me out: I used to think balance was the ability to hash out twenty emails; create content for all my social platforms; contact my colleagues about questions and then be able to easily shift into an evening bubble bath with a great audiobook. Read more>>

Alisha Kerlin | Museum Director, Artist, Mother

I met my colleague and neuroscientist friend Rochelle Hines at the UNLV Preschool. I really look up to her. When we first met we both had 10-month-old babies and I felt like I was barely keeping it together. Everyone else seemed OK and balanced. When I asked her how she keeps her career and family life in balance, she said, “the boat is floating.” Read more>>

Jacob Strunk | Writer and Filmmaker

What’s that saying? “Do something you love and never work a day in your life.” Or the evermore poetic “Find what you love and let it kill you,” credited to either Charles Bukowski or Kinky Friedman, depending on where you source your memes. My friend and mentor for multiple decades now, the author Richard Horan, wrote to me recently: “As a creative artist, you are your art. You can’t separate the two.” Read more>>

Francesca Crowley | Singer-Songwriter

Music and playing music has been an important factor my entire life. In 2020, after receiving treatment for an eating disorder, my career path moved in different directions. I am currently studying to become a music therapist at Cal State Northridge. Read more>>

Kei Adams | Freelance Fine Artist

When I began my art career, I threw my whole self into it. I was so dedicated to succeeding (which is a good thing) but I ignored the needs my personal life and soon this caught up with me and I burned out. Read more>>

Winnie Wong | Independent Producer

I think I’m not alone when I say that I’m still learning how to strike a balance between my personal and work life. In some ways, the lines are blurred. If you were to ask me this question when I was first getting started, I would say that there wasn’t much balance at all. Read more>>

Gwendolyn Osborne | Actor/Entrepreneur

Since learning that balance in life is not a destination but a consistent act we engage in every day, it has taken so much pressure off. I constantly stay aware of how much attention I am giving myself, my children and my business. One thing can bleed into another but as Long as it’s bringing joy in some way it’s not stressful. Read more>>

Jewels Davidson | Integrative Health Coach & Private Trainer, Jewels Fit

As a small business owner, new mom and someone who has always focused on the importance of maintaining a healthy work/life balance, my perspective and priorities were drastically altered by recent events this past year. Easing back into my private training business (run out of my MB home studio) was a hard, yet very welcomed adjustment after the birth of my newborn son. Read more>>

Nathan Scheuer | Theatrical and Live Event Designer

Throughout my life, I’ve always struggled with finding that perfect balance of work and life. It is especially hard because I truly love what I do and I am one of the lucky few who has been able to turn one of their passions into their career, and up until the pandemic, it was the only field in which I ever held a job. Read more>>

Taylor Trumbo | Talent Agency Owner

At the start of launching my agency, work was my life. Day in and day out, I was solely focused on growing the brand, building and maintaining relationships, submitting, pitching, booking, answering calls, meeting and signing new clients…all of it…and all by myself. I was ALWAYS on but with the recent life events that have happened, I’ve learned to find that balance in my life. Read more>>

Kimberly Crider | Writer, Healer & Guide

I come from a corporate beauty background. I’ve worked for beauty brands doing marketing. I’ve worked for service providers doing talent acquisition. I’ve run businesses and been an assistant. For almost eight years I thought balance was the epitome of what we strive for. We work 40 hours a week and come home to unplug. We live on the weekends. I used to obsess over it – reading all the articles of all the successful people to figure out how to create that. Read more>>

Alondra Excene Shields | Makeup Artist

When I first started doing makeup, I never turned down a job, I would cancel plans last minute, not make plans because I didn’t know when I’d book work, etc. It definitely put a strain on my friendships and relationships. I never knew which job would be the “big one”, so I felt guilty turning work down. Read more>>

Adria Vey | Lettering Artist & Etsy Seller

Work life balance is super important to me, I want to be able to run a successful business without working endless hours per day. Staying organized and having a set list of tasks for each day has really helped transform my workday. I’ve always had a really strong boundary between work and free time, but moving into a larger space and creating an office for myself has significantly helped literally close off my work in my home from the rest of my life. Read more>>

Alexandra Wagner | Aesthetician+Artist+ Developer of the White Tiger Skincare Collection

I believe work/life balance is a major factor for your overall health and happiness of your business and of your life .I started my business 15 years ago, and for about the first 8 years I put 85% of my energy into my work life. I felt like I had to work all the time because I had to sustain my business. Read more>>

Karishma Pradhan | Recipe Developer, Cooking Instructor, and Food Photographer

Part of the reason I switched from a full-time job in analytics to starting my own business was because of the inflexibility of a traditional office job. The expectation of going into the office at least 4 days a week for 8-10 hours a day in a stressful environment never sat well with me. Read more>>

Ejay Menchavez | Artist & Educator

I got my first job at thirteen years old and I haven’t stopped working since. New York City raised me with a hustle that I could not get rid of. Having five jobs made me feel useful and capable, as if the world acknowledged me as a human being. I was needed. I measured my value by my ability to provide results. Read more>>

Maryia Danila | Maries Photography Fashion/Beauty Photographer

Starting your own business you always want to be better than other ones in the same field. But when you more exploring other work or trying copying them, at the end, you start to lose yourself. Read more>>

MUSZETTE | Pop Artist

I used to be extremely focused on getting to the end result, and of course to a large extent I obviously still care about the outcome of getting my music out there. However, I’ve learned that as cheesy as it may sound, life truly is about the journey and not the destination. Read more>>

Clarissa Castillo-Ramsey | Leadership/Life Coach and Abstract Artist

We’ve got one life, the one we’re living today in the here and now. To me, work life balance is really about work life harmony. Am I living a balanced life for me?Everyone is different. I tend to enjoy working on several different projects at once. Read more>>

Hannah Lewis | Singer, Arranger, and Educator

Once I decided toward the end of high school that I wanted to make music for a living, I quickly fell into the mindset that often plagues creatives: the idea that if you’re not constantly writing, practicing, or networking, you’re wasting time and don’t want it bad enough. Read more>>

Katie Wilbert | Actor, Writer, Comedian

When I was in my early twenties I was willing to sacrifice ANYTHING to be a successful artist, even if that meant dooming myself to an eternity of singledom and never having a family of my own. Read more>>

Theresa Knopf | Artist

Work life balance has always been a struggle for me. I had children in my early twenties and had to juggle family, college, and creative pursuits all while holding down a full-time job in education and technology. Throughout those early years I would sacrifice my sleep and well-being to keep all the plates spinning. Read more>>

Cee | Blogger & Content Creator

When I first started my blog I was in the process of becoming a foster parent. But once we were placed, everything changed. I became a mom overnight and had to learn everything pretty quick. My blog was put on hold because I was still learning how to balance my new role as a foster mom and a wife and be my own person. Now that we are almost two years into it I have learned how to balance it all by creating my own schedule to follow. Read more>>

Monica Kang | Illustrator & Designer

Recently I’ve been trying to keep in mind that my worth isn’t defined by my work. As I gained more experience in the creative industry, I began telling myself that more is good. “More” in terms of taking on all the creative opportunities that were presented to me. Especially during this time of COVID, I dove into work because there was all this extra time being at home. Read more>>

Emily Eckstein | Designimator

Finding that work/life balance is the ultimate goal I believe. On the one hand, hopefully you find your work fulfilling and enjoyable enough that you look forward to it, but on the other hand it shouldn’t be all consuming such that your physical and mental health are declining. Read more>>

Hilary Norcliffe | Adjunct Professor and Artist interested in Children’s Books and Found Object Sculpture

I guess there was a time when I thought of work and life as separate things, but for a long time now I’ve thought of art as a lifestyle and a way of thinking – not something separate from “work”. Rarely do I get to sit in my studio to make “art”. So I try to bring it into daily chores, teaching, repairing my house, responding to tenant needs or raising my daughter Read more>>

Pure & Weary Katherine Biskupic & Leah Frires | comedy duo

K: We’re a comedy duo but also best friends so we always finish each other’s… L: Tuna Melts. Just kidding I’m lactose intolerant.
K: And I don’t like tuna. I microwaved it at work once and I was shunned forever.
L: As you can see, we stay on topic. But honestly, we found a good rhythm of getting work done. That’s not the hard part. We have trouble with the down time. Read more>>