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How To Balance Your Personal And Professional Life?

Created by Greer Riddell in Portfolio for Freelance on 08 Mar 2018

Watch seven women from across the radio industry (BBC Radio, Talk Radio, Global Radio, Women’s Hour) discuss their top tips on how to balance your personal and professional life. Panel held at Goldsmiths University for International Women’s Day.

Watch our Balance Your Personal And Professional Life Video on YouTube.

Another post in the Women In Radio series (thanks to Wired Radio’s International Women’s Day panel), this time the panellists discuss their advice for balancing your personal with your professional life. No matter your role in the media industry, the radio station or TV channel doesn’t stop so the lines between your working hours and home life tend to get blurred. Whether it’s seeing a great news story you want to cover, meeting someone who would be good to interview or posting on social media, you’re always on!

Yasmeen Khan, Presenter at Talk Radio discusses how she judges which parts of her personal life to divulge on air and which to keep private.

Choosing How Much Of Your Personal Life To Discuss

“I try to be as authentic as possible on air. You have to have some separation for your own sanity and frankly for your own safety as well. If there are parts of your life, particularly as a speech presenter, that you don't want to talk about then that should always be okay. There are times that I've opened up about very personal things and people listeners really appreciate it. I talked about my dad passing away, it took me quite a while after… good few weeks afterwards but I felt like I had a relationship with listeners and [some called to say] ‘we knew something had happened because you we’re away unexpectedly’ and that was really kind and then we had a whole conversation about grief. I wrote this piece about grieving in the workplace, so sometimes that authentic-ness and that honesty is it's never going to fail you but there are certain things I wouldn't talk about.” - Yasmeen Khan - Presenter at Talk Radio and BBC Three Counties Radio

“There are other presenters who would choose to have a somewhat very distant version of themselves but I think it's about finding something that you're comfortable with and this is a bit of a generalization but there is something about being a female presenter and that there are always going to be some problematic people who feel they know you really well.” - Yasmeen Khan - Presenter at Talk Radio and BBC Three Counties Radio

It’s not just presenters which have a hard time balancing their personal and professional lives, Producers also struggle with switching off. Marta Malagon, Assistant Producer at Talk Radio says she has to plan time to actually have a break from work.

Being Always ‘On’ As A Producer

“For me I'm still trying to find a way to find the balance between professional and personal life because as a producer. I think that I'm almost never off. You are not on duty but still there are things that you need to deal with and it feels sometimes it's a little bit overwhelming. I just have to make a point of switching my phone of and say well if something happens in the next couple of hours then I'll deal with it tomorrow or later or maybe my colleagues can deal with it but every now and again I have to make a point of being off because it's just it somehow takes over your life.” - Marta Malagon - Assistant Producer at Talk Radio

Thank you to all panelists for sharing their stories on the night.