Thoughts on work life balance
Posted by kathryn in Lifestyle
I’ve been thinking a lot about work-life balance recently: what it is, how to achieve it and perhaps most significantly, how to maintain it in the long-term.
Before going away, I was tired and felt I needed my holiday just a bit too much. I’d let work and commitments overwhelm the other parts of my life – the parts that keep me healthy, stress free and full of energy.
Work life balance has become such a buzz-phrase. Journalists write about it; people talk about it; while some employers have policies to help their staff maintain it. Recent studies have discussed the effects on our lives, families and mental health from not having work-life balance.
Personally I’m not a big fan of the phrase. As a colleague pointed out to me yesterday, it implies your work and your life are in opposition to each other – one exists at the expense of the other. However, my work doesn’t keep me away from my life, instead, my work is part of my life.
As my wise colleague pointed out, the issue is how you integrate work into your life, without it dominating and taking over? How do you give equal priority to the things that matter, whatever they may be – health, work, family, friends, community and so on?
My opinion is that work life integration is a life-long project. It’s not static, it’s not something you achieve and can then put to one side and not think about again. As our lives change, our priorities change and therefore the balance between these components changes. One week you may have to put more energy and time into work, but then there needs to be a counter-balance, ie a time when you put less of yourself into work and more into one of the other priorities.
It’s this last part we often forget, I certainly had in the few weeks before my holiday – hence the tired, slightly burnt-out feeling. So, since my return I’ve been spending some time clarifying my goals and priorities. What’s important to me and what’s extraneous? What nourishes and enriches my life and what can I do without? What’s the core of my business and what projects should I think about dropping?
What about you, how’s your work-life integration going?
04 May, 2007
Comments
Very well put. I completely agree that it’s an ongoing process. The key for me is stop every now and then remind myself what priorities are most important to me. I think that’s the most important thing you can do. Otherwise, you are always making a half-effort to find an acceptable balance. Further, just talking about with your work colleagues, your boss, and your family helps all interested parties informed and hopefully, happy.
You’ve raised an important issue, which is that when you work 8/9 hours a day, it’s hard to separate work from life! A wise man once said You’ll never wish yu spent another day in the office when you’re dying. I try and leave work at a respectable time, enjoy plenty of out of work activities and have as much fun as possible. It works sometimes…
Jeremy – sounds like you’re doing some good things. It’s an interesting and useful (and sometime challenging) exercise to take some time out and examine your priorities. Of course they vary for each of us, but in that mix of work, family, friends, relationship, health, community, pets, scuba-diving, etc, what are the most important things to you? And in turn, if those are your priorities, is that reflected in how much time and energy you put into each? As I said, this can be challenging, but ultimately worthwhile.
Mallika – it’s a good quote, and true for almost everybody It’s all about what enriches and nourishes you as an individual. Work can be one of those things, it certainly is for me, but it’s still important to take part in the other aspects of your life. And, as you say, working realistic hours is crucial for this. And if your work-life integration plan works sometimes, then you’re doing better than most!
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I’m almost asking myself this question, and think it’s interesting to see how other people resolve the balance through part-time work, discipline, or necessity.
I think one of the challenges is finding a career or vocation that’s stimulating without being all-encompassing.
Work-life integration is different for everyone, so there are also many different ways of achieving it and I agree, Kate, it’s really interesting to see what others do to keep happy and sane. Stimulating work, that doesn’t swamp you sounds like an ideal.
[…] I’ve been talking about work-life integration recently and this need for down-time is one of the reasons I’ve started meditating regularly. However, there are many other ways to get the time out you need. Going for short walks during your lunch break, walking part of the way home from work, spending an hour at the beach on the weekend, all of these will give you the time you need. Freaked-Out Father has some good suggestions, as he says “defrag your head and your life regularly and both will run better”. […]
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It’s so refreshing to find someone else who is not happy with the phrase ‘work life balance’. I too have questioned it becasue it doesn’t seem to describe what really goes on in people’s lives- there’s lots of blending and blurring of work family and life, and like a never ending Russian Doll, work is contained with in life, and life is contained in work, it’s all connected. Anyway I have come up with the term work life interconncetivity – if you are interested please visit my blog at www.worklifeinterconnectivity.com – and obviously delicious food is what keeps all the wheels turning…
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