Why high-achievers don’t actually want work-life balance (and what they want instead)

About a year ago, I tried deleting the email app from my phone.

This was my big, bold attempt at “work-life balance.”
Very brave. Very aspirational.

Spoiler alert: I put it back on.

Not because I’m addicted to email (okay, maybe a little).
But because deleting it didn’t actually solve the real problem.

The problem wasn’t access to email.
It was that my work had taken up way more space in my life than I wanted it to.

And that’s the part no one ever seems to mention when they’re handing out work-life balance advice.

It’s not about caring less or closing your laptop (we both know you’ll still be thinking about work).

It’s about wanting to succeed without your job becoming your whole personality.

Let’s get into it. 

What people actually mean when they say they want “Work-Life Balance”

Here’s the thing about high-achievers: They like their ambition. They like to get shit done. They’re not bothered by hard work.

Aaaaaand….They want more life in their life.

They want to leave work and actually be done.
They want evenings that don’t involve “just one more email.”
They want their partner to stop giving them that look when they open their laptop for the third time after dinner.

But when you’ve got 2,000 unread emails, constant Slack pings, and deadlines that multiply overnight, “Netflix and chill” feels like a joke.

Because the problem isn’t that you don’t value the life part of work-life balance.
It’s that work keeps expanding to fill every available inch.

So when people tell you to “just create better work-life balance,” it sounds nice… and also completely disconnected from reality.

Your drive isn’t the problem.
You just need a way to stop work from hijacking your entire life.

And that’s where this conversation actually gets interesting.

Why you’re working at night even though you’re busy all day

I’m married to a CFO. And I’ve coached a lot of senior level executives. 

Here’s what I see over and over: You’re not working at night because you’re bad at time management.

You’re working at night because your entire day gets eaten alive.

• Meetings.

• “Quick questions.”

• Last-minute requests.

• Fire drills that somehow become your problem.

• People needing decisions, reassurance, fixes, approvals, and answers.

By the time the day is over, you’ve been busy nonstop… but you haven’t actually done your job.

So you log back on.
At night.
Early in the morning.
On weekends.

Not because you love working. But because that’s the only quiet time left to think, plan, and actually get things done.

This is the overfunctioner trap.

You’re competent, responsive, and reliable. People come to you because you can handle it. And because you do handle it, more work keeps finding you. Your calendar fills up. Your inbox explodes. And your real work gets pushed to the margins.

You’re not bad at work-life balance. You’re just really, really good at being needed.

So yeah, you work too much. But not because you’re inefficient.
You work too much because your days are optimized for reacting, not thinking.

And until that changes, no amount of “log off earlier” advice is going to stick.

Working too much or too much work?

Here’s the part most work-life balance advice skips.

High achievers don’t just struggle because they lack boundaries (although some of y’all totally do, but that’s a different post). 

They struggle because their days are packed with things that feel urgent, visible, and socially rewarded… but leave zero space for focused, intentional work.

You think you’re expected to:
- Be available
- Be responsive
- Be helpful
- Be in meetings
- Be the one who “handles it”

And somehow also:
- Think strategically
- Lead well
- Produce high-quality work
- Stay on top of everything

Those two lists don’t coexist like peas and carrots.

And this is where I’ll say the quiet part out loud.

Is work-life balance a myth?
Yeah… if you’re working three people’s jobs, it is.

How high achievers actually get work done at work

This is the part people usually skip to.
Because deep down, you’re not confused about work life balance.

You’re just trying to figure out how to stop working at night. And on weekends. And on vacation. And on the toilet (you know it happens)

So I’m spilling the beans on the exact strategies I use with my high-achieving clients who want more work-life balance.

1. Focus Time (a.k.a. being temporarily unavailable)

This is non-negotiable.

Focus Time means:
• No email
• No Slack
• No notifications
• No being “reachable just in case”

It’s a protected block of time where your only job is to actually do the work that requires thinking.

Most high achievers don’t need better time management. They need fewer interruptions.

Start with 30 minutes and work your way up. You’ll be amazed at how much you get done.

2. Stop accepting every meeting invite by default

Meetings are where productivity goes to die.

You do not need to be at every meeting you’re invited to.

You especially do not need to be at meetings where:
• You’re not a decision maker
• Your presence is optional
• The agenda is unclear
• This could absolutely have been an email

High achievers burn hours in meetings and then wonder why they’re stuck working after dinner. This is why.

3. Do, Delegate, Delay, or Delete everything

Every task and email falls into one of four buckets.

• Do it now
• Delegate it
• Delay it
• Delete it

If you don’t consciously decide which bucket something belongs in, it quietly defaults to “I guess I’ll carry this.”

And that’s how your workload balloons without you ever agreeing to it.

4. Manage expectations instead of trying to meet all of them

This is where most people get stuck.

If you say yes to something, ask yourself: What am I saying no to?

Time is finite. Energy is finite. You cannot say yes without a cost.

So if your boss asks you to add something to your already overflowing plate, you can say:

• “I can do this but I can’t get to it until ___.”

• “I’m happy to do this now. What task do you want to delay so this gets my focus?”

High achievers don’t burn out because they’re bad at their jobs. They burn out because they keep agreeing to everything and hoping it will somehow work out.

It doesn’t.

5. Stop multi-tasking. Like, for real.

I wrote a whole other post about why switching between tasks is making you slow af. You can read it here.

Your brain doesn’t instantly hop from one task to another. It needs to shut one thing down and spin another up. 

For simple, familiar tasks, this switch can take a few seconds.
For complex or heavy-thinking work, it can take 15-25 minutes. 

If you want to be more productive, minimize these switches.

Batch the shallow stuff.
Answer emails at specific times.
Group admin work together.

Your brain works better when it can stay in one lane for longer than five minutes.

Less switching = more actual progress = fewer late nights.

Why traditional work-life balance advice doesn’t work for high achievers

Here’s the real takeaway I want people to walk away with:

Work isn’t bleeding into life because you lack discipline, boundaries, or the right “work-life balance hack.”

You’re working at night because your brain never gets enough uninterrupted time during the day to actually finish anything.

Between a too-big workload, emails, Slack, meetings, last-minute “quick asks,” and constant task switching, your attention is getting shredded. So the only time your brain can finally settle in and think is when everything goes quiet. Which usually means… evenings, weekends, or 10:47 pm on the couch.

That’s not a personal failure. That’s a systems problem.

And the fix isn’t “care less,” quit your job, or delete email off your phone forever (ask me how that worked out).

It’s doing fewer things at once.
Protecting real Focus Time.
Being choosier about meetings.
Managing expectations instead of silently absorbing everything.
And letting your brain actually finish a thought before asking it to start another one.

When you get your work done at work, life gets to be for living.
Not for catching up.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “Yeah… this is me,” and you want help untangling how to work like a high achiever without burning yourself to the ground, that’s literally my thing.

Book a free consult and we’ll figure out what’s actually keeping you stuck at your laptop at night and how to change it without blowing up your career or your ambition.

You don’t need less drive.
You need a smarter way to use it.

Read This Next 

• If you’re the one who always picks up the slack - Overfunctioning: Why Being the Most Capable Person in the Room Is Burning You Out

• If your brain feels fried by the end of the day - Why Multitasking Is Making You Slower

• If you’ve ever wondered “Is it me… or my brain?” - Adult ADHD and High Achievers: Why Work Feels Harder Than It Should

• If resentment is creeping in alongside the workload - The Habits Quietly Turning You Into a Resentful Person

FAQ about Work-Life Balance

Q: Is work-life balance actually possible for high achievers?
A: Yes, but not in the way it’s usually sold. If you’re working the equivalent of two or three jobs, balance will always feel out of reach. For high achievers, the fix isn’t caring less or lowering standards. It’s redesigning how work happens during the day so it doesn’t spill into nights and weekends by default.

Q: Why do I feel busy all day but still have to work at night?
A: Because your day is likely optimized for reacting, not thinking. Meetings, emails, Slack messages, and last-minute requests eat up the hours meant for focused work. The real work then gets pushed to the only quiet time left. Evenings, mornings, weekends.

Q: Is this just a boundaries problem?
A: Sometimes. But often it’s a workload and systems problem, not a personal failure. You can have “great boundaries” and still be overloaded if expectations, meetings, and responsibilities aren’t realistic.

Q: How do I stop working at night without falling behind?
A: You need protected Focus Time, fewer low-value meetings, clearer expectations, and less task switching during the day. When real work actually gets done at work, nights stop being the default catch-up time.

Q: Is this burnout or just a busy season?
A:If “busy season” has been going on for years and your evenings are consistently hijacked by work, it’s not going to change unless YOU change. Burnout often shows up first as irritability, resentment, and never feeling done, not total collapse.

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Hi! I’m Erica

Licensed psychotherapist. Corporate dropout. Wife to Brendan. Mom to twins + one. ADHDer. Slow runner. Coffee drinker. Swear words enthusiast.

I know exactly what it’s like to have a life that looks successful on the outside but feel chronically exhausted, frustrated, and completely lost on the inside.

I help underachieving high-achievers create lives and careers they love, without burning out.

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