How to Find Work-Life Balance as a Chef

Chefs can look forward to fast-paced shifts, late nights, early mornings, and action-packed hours. It’s not uncommon for them to work 50-70 hours per week. A study from Frontiers in Public Health found many chefs working an average of 66 hours per week. But you love the job, and you can’t imagine doing anything else.

If that sounds familiar, you know the intensity of a chef’s commitment can be motivating and exciting. But no matter how invested you are, if you spread yourself too thin, you may run the risk of harming your health, your relationships, or even the career that you love. That’s why creating a solid work-life balance is so important for professional chefs.

Let’s take a closer look at some strategies that might be able to help you find that work-life balance.

Understand Your Limits—and Your Worth

A certain amount of intensity is unavoidable for chefs. Putting out plates consistently during a busy dinner seating is almost inevitably going to be hectic and demanding. If you’re a baker, you’re likely going to have to show up to work at 4 a.m. almost every day; if you work dinner shifts, it’s likely that you won’t be getting off work until midnight or later. That intensity can be thrilling, and you may love the hustle and bustle of the kitchen or the quiet hours spent in your bakery while the world sleeps. But you should still remain conscious of your needs and strive not to overextend yourself.

Stand Up for Your Well-Being

If you aren’t comfortable with a job, or if you’re feeling burned out, you have the right to express yourself and your needs. As long as you do so respectfully, your superiors should respect you and the desire to protect yourself for the long run; if they don’t, that could be a sign that you may want to reconsider whether that particular workplace is right for you.

Bottom line—learning how and when to say “no” can play an important role in the development of your career.

You should also feel comfortable advocating for a reasonable schedule. That may mean two days off per week, having decent shifts with some level of consistency, and the ability to split shifts with other workers. As a chef, it’s likely that you may have to work during certain holidays or put in extra hours during especially busy periods. But being asked to do that on a regular basis may not be sustainable.

Check In with Your Priorities

You should also be sure to take time periodically to check in with your priorities. Ask yourself: is your current job really helping you meet your goals? Depending on where you are in your career, you may sometimes feel the need to take any job that’s available. But sticking with a job that’s not aligned with your skills or life goals can have a negative effect on your work-life balance.

The restaurant industry is still in the midst of a longstanding staff shortage, which is part of the reason why chefs may be overworked in the first place. The flipside of that, though, is that it’s likely there are other opportunities out there for you if your current job isn’t a good fit anymore. Thinking about your personal limits—and your personal worth—when considering job opportunities can be an important way to stay connected to your priorities and find a healthy work-life balance.

Establish Sustainable Habits in the Kitchen

Even if you love your job, though, it may still involve a significant level of intensity and stress; it’s just in the nature of the industry. But by establishing sustainable habits in the kitchen, you have an opportunity to make your work more efficient, which can help reduce stress and improve your quality of life.

Preparation Can Help You Get Ahead of Potential Stressors

Taking the appropriate steps to prepare for your shift can make everything so much easier. This could include everything from practicing mise-en-place to ensuring you’re using the right knives for the right tasks.

Effective preparation and time management can be a game-changer in the kitchen; though each of these interventions may seem minor, they can wind up having an outsize impact on your experience at work.

Communication Can Keep Your Kitchen Relationships Healthy

In the kitchen, you’re part of a team; as such, it’s important that you put in the effort to find ways to work together effectively. This can begin with good communication practices, which can minimize confusion, prevent mistakes, and help keep you and your colleagues safe.

Having open channels of communication can be helpful in other ways, too. It can allow you to delegate and share tasks more efficiently, and it can help you and your peers connect as people—which can create more of a sense of purpose and satisfaction with your work.

Perspective Can Empower You to Own Your Career

It’s no secret that the kitchen can be a stressful environment—it’s hot, loud, and active, and it can feel like there are a million things to keep track of. However, research has shown that stress can impair our ability to make decisions, which can have a snowball effect, creating even more stress.

Try to maintain perspective in the kitchen. Instead of getting caught up in a mistake someone made, or in someone else’s personal drama, try focusing on what you can control instead. Sometimes, the best thing to do in a stressful situation is simply to walk away for a minute and get some fresh air; this can help you regain perspective on what matters and what doesn’t, which can help you eliminate unnecessary stress from your work.

Commit to a Healthy Lifestyle

Finding work-life balance isn’t just about making changes in the workplace, though. You should also consider what changes you can make outside of work in order to establish a more fulfilling routine.

Because working in restaurants can be stressful, there can be a temptation to engage in behavior outside of work that’s just oriented around feeling good now. That might include socializing too much, eating unhealthy food, or having poor sleep habits. While these behaviors might be gratifying in the moment, in the long run they’re likely to be detrimental to your mental and physical health.

A better option might be to consider healthier alternatives, such as getting some form of exercise, sticking to a consistent sleep schedule, and improving your diet. Making time for relationships and for enriching hobbies like reading books or listening to podcasts can also help you keep perspective on things that are important to you aside from your work.

Lay the Foundations for a Sustainable Culinary Career

Nothing should stand in the way of your culinary aspirations, and as difficult as being a chef may be, the rewards can be even more impactful. The rush of a fast-paced kitchen can be exhilarating, and nothing compared to the satisfaction you’ll feel when a customer melts at the taste of your food. The right foundation can help take you there. An education at Escoffier can give you the opportunity to gain the skills necessary to thrive both inside and beyond the kitchen.

Programs are available at our campuses in Boulder and Austin, as well as online, which means there are a variety of options that may fit in with your goals, needs, and lifestyle.

Financial aid, grants, and scholarships are available to those who apply and qualify; your culinary aspirations may be there for the taking!

INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE ABOUT MANAGING YOUR CULINARY CAREER? CHECK OUT THESE ARTICLES NEXT!

• 5 Important Networking Tips for All Chefs
• How Full-Time, Working Adults Can Succeed in Online Culinary School
• Cooking Up Resilience: How Five Culinary School Graduates Turned Challenges into Triumphs

This article was originally published on December 11, 2015, and has since been updated.

*Information may not reflect every student’s experience. Results and outcomes may be based on several factors, such as geographical region or previous experience.