Since there's this Covid thing going on in the world for what's felt like ages, and thanks to ongoing restrictions on where and how one has to work, we - and in this case, I relate to a friend of mine and myself - developed our own temporary work-life balance strategy.
This strategy consists of a limited amount of time, spent together in the mountains, while we split our time equally in working and touring in the winter.
"The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning." Michel Foucault
The word balance in this relationship is the key. Too much of anything, even something good, can be bad!
While a lot changed since the 1930ies, the 40-hour and 5-day working week hasn't changed at all. Covid shook up this situation since many of us had and still have to work from home. We exchanged morning commute with a coffee break to catch up on the news with colleagues, for online meetings, chat groups, and spreadsheets. The balance between work and life disappeared for these folks, who were working from home.
Let me introduce to you our plan - we took the analytical, very detail-oriented, project-based way and split the working week in exactly a half :)
Half of the time in the mornings, until 12:30 latest, we focused on whatever we needed to finish at work. 13:00 sharp we packed our bags, skis, splitboard, checked whether we haven't forgotten the avalanche transceivers, gloves, or thermo-flasks, and hit the way up the mountain. The ways up and down were winding and surely fun ;)
We explored the Val d'Anniviers this time, an amazing valley with huge mountains, great slopes, forests, glaciers, frozen waterfalls, and breathtaking sunrises and sunsets. As you never predict the weather forecast, we were stuck again in avalanche risk 3&4, which means taking the safe routes, walking through forests and not going anywhere steep.
Our goal for the next mission possible is to take ice axes with us! There are so many tempting frozen waterfalls, that we will be ready and equipped the next time to climb these!
And as a secret recommendation - should you have some free evenings, take with you one of the EXIT games. The predicted playtime extended itself into two full evenings for us, it was called "The Graveyard of Darkness" and we poured our blood, sweat, and tears into this, accompanied by some glasses of red wine :)
Big thanks to my great friend and adventure lover for this special time!