When my husband and I got married three years ago, I was still a student working toward getting my Bachelor’s degree.  It was pretty easy to fit school into my new married life, and maintaining a healthy work-life balance was a breeze.

Then I graduated and everything changed.

I started working full-time and quickly realized that this was where the challenge was.  Trying to juggle my brand new career with all my responsibilities at home taxed and stretched me in ways I couldn’t have imagined.  A lot of my pre-conceived notions about my role as a wife changed, and it took me about a year to feel like I’d finally gotten my feet under me.

As someone who’s recently survived the transition from single to married, and from student to full-time employee, I’ve learned a few things that might help should you ever find yourself in a similar situation.  Here are some tips that helped me get through the experience in one (relatively sane) piece:

• Learn to ask for help.  When I first started out as a wife, I had this idea in my head that I could do everything.  All the laundry, all the cleaning, all the cooking.  When I was a student, this was an accessible goal because even as a full-time student I still had time on my hands.  After starting my first job out of college, however, my spare time disappeared seemingly overnight.  After unsuccessfully trying to cram everything into my small window of spare time in the evenings, I had to learn when to ask for help.  It was difficult at first, and almost felt like failing or falling short, but as I asked for, and received, help, I could feel the weight of my crushing expectations lifting from my shoulders and I actually started enjoying life.  You may be a superhero, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve a helping hand every once in awhile.
• Give yourself some space.  Life is no fun at all if you don’t include some personal time.  It took me awhile to figure out how to balance time with my friends with my husband and my job.  It eventually became clear to me that I needed to make time for myself, too, so I started scheduling lunches with friends and blocking out time to exercise.  Having a true work/life balance means having quality relationships with the people you enjoy most.  Once I realized that and created some space, my life seemed much more full, complete, and satisfying.
• Don’t stop learning.  An interesting side effect of graduation is that no one tells you to learn anything anymore.  There are no more professors telling you which books to read, and there are no more degree programs that let you know which topics you need to be studying.  I have to admit, the lack of intellectual direction was jarring for me.  If you think about it, from the time you’re six years old until the day you graduate, there’s always a new class, new topic, new school to go to.  Once you graduate, that’s it.  You’re done.  No more.  I found that a great way to deal with this is to keep learning.  I love going to the library and borrowing language programs on CD and learning new languages in my car.  If languages aren’t your thing, you could always read a book about a topic you’re interested in or take a class at a community college every once in awhile.  You could even learn a new work skill to enhance your value as an employee.  The important thing is to keep your brain active and engaged.

Have you recently graduated college or gotten married?  Are there any tips that helped you survive the impact of these transitions on your work/life balance?