I’m writing this blog post while my toddler watches a cartoon in the background, and I feel drained by the constant need to multitask. This morning, I peeled clementines for her while leading a Zoom meeting, trying to keep my hands out of frame and appease her without needing to mute my audio. I’m currently five years post-PhD graduation, and have worked remotely ever since: through my husband’s process of immigrating to the U.S., COVID-19, and parenthood. I think often about the lessons I’ve learned since finishing my doctorate about work-life balance. Because my life was so much less complicated during graduate school, I had the luxury of “winging it” when it came to work-life balance, and I didn’t achieve it very effectively. Now that I have to actively grapple for work-life balance as I change diapers while returning phone calls, I have a much different appreciation for what I could have done differently during graduate school.

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