“Work-Life Balance”
Something about this concept has always rubbed me the wrong way.
Just like the unrealistic magazine images of perfectly organized closets (no one’s clothes are that crisply hung or has every hanger spaced out exactly 1-inch apart!) and sparkling clean kitchen counters (do any of you have functioning kitchens with nothing sitting on top of your countertops?), the term work-life balance immediately makes me feel I have failed before I have even joined the game.
Balance implies to most of us an equal distribution of our time, attention, and energy between all parts of life; a 50/50 split between the “working” part of our life and the “living” part of our life. Last time I checked, we are all living while working, and a lot of the personal responsibilities of life feels like work!
As professionals, leaders &/or business owners, most of us can access just about everything we need to complete our professional responsibilities from the palm of our hand or from the laptop that never leaves our side. While this “convenience” allows for flexibility in where, when, and how we work, it also creates the opportunity (and sometimes expectation) to always be accessible, to always be producing, to always have some percentage of our focus and attention on work and getting things done.
Let’s be honest: work-life balance is a concept of the past.
Creating Your Ideal Work-Life Integration
When I work with clients and train groups/teams, I specifically talk about creating manageable and sustainable work-life integration. In my mind, integration is the most realistic description of the way we live our lives. More often than not, we weave in and out of working time blocks and personal time blocks. Most days, we tackle professional to-do items as well as family or household tasks. At any given time, we are pushing forward workplace initiatives and personal projects. When we try to isolate or separate one part of our lives from another, it typically creates conflict and struggle rather than clarity or convenience.
Whether you prefer to call it integration or balance, there are a few initial steps to take to ensure you are proactively creating the professional and personal life you desire.
Take a big picture view.
Whether you are planning your day, week, or month, be sure you are identifying both professional and personal dates, events, and deadlines that are important and need to be prioritized. The week of a holiday or family member’s birthday is an ideal week to schedule fewer client meetings, eliminate travel, and/or decline optional invitations for happy hours or non-vital networking events. A tool like the Full Focus Planner is a great way to build this proactive habit.
Define your own boundaries and constraints.
There is a difference between expecting yourself or team members to work within unrealistic constraints (ex: no personal phone calls between 9:00-5:00) and working/living with no boundaries or constraints. Using a visual representation of your day, create as many “pieces of the pie” or building blocks to fill out the 24 hours, then determine which (and how many) of those pieces will be devoted to work tasks, parenting tasks, self-care activities, etc. Break out of the confines of an 8-hour work day, and step into the mindset that the quality of your work is what matters. Some of us need long periods of time to dig in, focus, and find our flow. Others do their best work in shorter spurts and with rotating focus from work to personal back to work. Give yourself permission to work in a cadence that matches your needs.
Find the intersections.
I used to experience extreme guilt if I ran a quick, personal errand while driving from the office to a client meeting, even though it was on the way and saving me time in the grand scheme of my day. Guess who was to blame for that guilt? Me, myself, and I. No one else was making a judgment. It was previous programming from being a public school employee, where it was unacceptable to do anything personal during working hours. It took me a few years to reprogram my system and to recognize that taking advantage of those conveniences was a “perk” of integrating my work and life. Now, I look for intersections whenever possible. If I am on a roll making work phone calls, I throw in a few personal calls while I am “in the flow” utilizing my communication skills. If it’s a quiet Saturday morning at home and the kids are paying at the neighbors, I clean out my inbox for an early weekend win.
Lead By Example
If you are the owner or leader of an organization, I strongly encourage you to embrace the concept of work-life integration. Show your team members you trust in them by giving them the autonomy to prioritize their professional tasks and responsibilities along with their personal and family needs. Be intentional and talk about how you integrate your roles and responsibilities, communicate your own boundaries and constraints, and celebrate your team when they find intersections that allow them to work smart versus hard. Let them know and see you don’t live a life that is perfectly balanced, and explore ways you can create a workplace culture that promotes integration so that everyone can experience a double win, in work and in life.
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