“It was the year after my divorce, and I was working full time and getting my
MBA in the evenings,” begins Stephanie, a researcher at a global electronics
company. “My three kids were involved in Cub Scouts or Girl Scouts—all on
different nights—and hockey or ice skating, also on different nights, not to
mention the games every weekend. I think I went through that whole year without
sleeping.”
Stephanie recounts her story during a work-life balance seminar. The exercise
is a 21st century version of “Can You Top This?” with the prize going to the
contestant with the most out-of-control experience. The tales are startling,
outrageous, and, at the same time, almost universally familiar. As Stephanie
finishes, the 60 other people in the room nod knowingly, a silent expression of
“Been there, done that.”
Such out-of-kilter lives have become the rule, not the exception. Little
wonder work-life balance has emerged as the Holy Grail of the workplace. Survey
after survey shows that when people rank what they most want from their jobs,
balance tops the list.
Now, the good news: Work-life balance is not an impossible dream. In our
research, we talked to plenty of people who found workable solutions to the
balance dilemma. In nearly all cases, they realized that they won’t achieve
balance by running faster, working harder, and cramming more into their lives.
They let go of the idea of juggling everything.
This doesn’t mean they dropped out of society and are surviving on organic
vegetables and goat’s milk. Most of the successful “balancers” we studied aren’t
interested in an extreme version of the simple life. They accept, as a given,
that the three components of balance—meaningful work, satisfying relationships,
and personal rejuvenation or self-care—rarely come together in a tidy,
stress-free package. So they use a variety of methods to “rebalance” their lives
into a more satisfying—and sustainable—pattern.
Why Juggling Doesn’t Work Forty-five minutes, two seconds. It’s the longest time Anthony Gatto, a
professional juggler and the world-record holder since 1989, has kept five clubs
in the air. Add one or two clubs, and he can’t juggle much more than a minute.
Anthony is a juggler extraordinaire. Most of us are not. But we’re trying to
do the same thing with six, seven, eight, or more simultaneous commitments.
Patti Manuel, the president and chief operating officer of Sprint Long Distance,
consciously identifies the roles in her life as her juggling props. “I’m a boss,
an employee, a friend, a mother, a daughter, and a member of my church and
community.” (That’s seven.) “Balance is about understanding what these roles are
and not letting any one of them become dominant. Most of the time, I’m good at
it. Other times, I’m trying to manage my way back from chaos.”
Juggling is a knee-jerk coping mechanism—the “default” setting when time gets
tight and seemingly nothing can be put on the back burner. As long as our
reflexes are sharp, it works. We can “have it all.” For that 45 minutes and 2
seconds, we have a meaningful work life, a satisfying relationship with a
partner, quality time with our kids and friends, and sufficient snatches of
personal rejuvenation or self-care. Then something happens and it all comes
crashing down.
Comedian Steve Wright has observed, with his inimitable deadpan delivery,
“You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?” In our hearts, we know he’s
right. But that doesn’t keep us from trying to pack everything in anyway. And
when it doesn’t quite fit, we juggle as best we can.
Beyond Juggling If you’re an exhausted juggler looking for a better way, consider the
following five alternatives, gleaned from interviews with hundreds of busy
professionals.
Alternating. Alternaters want it all, but not all at once.
Their work-life balance comes in separate, concentrated doses. They throw
themselves into their careers with abandon, then cut way back or quit work
altogether and focus intensely on their non-professional interests.
Murray Low is currently an organization effectiveness manager for Eli Lilly.
Over the past 15 years, he has been a CPA, has worked for a strategy consulting
firm, and has run the HR department for a steel plant, with three- to six-month
stints of unemployment in between. He’s made the most of his time off, skiing
fresh powder and mountain biking with his wife and kids.
Others alternate on a daily or weekly basis. These “micro-alternaters” focus
while at work, but turn off their cell phones the minute they get home. They
refuse to check e-mail at night or on weekends. And they take all of their
allotted vacation days, every year. They consider their off-work time to be
crucial for deepening relationships and rejuvenating their spirit and energy.
Outsourcing. “We have a family of four and a staff of eight,”
quips Jon Younger, a New Jersey-based executive. He and his wife have precious
little free time to allocate to a seemingly endless list of demands. Their
solution: Prioritize those activities in which they want to be personally
involved, then hire out the rest. On the “personal” list are spending one-on-one
time with their two sons, coaching children’s sports, attending church services
and events, sharing quality time with extended family, and walking the dog. Just
about everything else—yard care, food prep, academic tutoring, vacation
planning, and car maintenance, among them—gets outsourced.
Outsourcers achieve work-life balance by off-loading responsibilities—usually
in their personal lives—to free up time and energy for those areas they care
most about. Their motto might be, “I want to have it all, not do it all.” Those
with limited disposable income rely on a robust, reciprocal network of family,
friends, neighbors, and other supporters who band together to help each other
gain a bit of balance in their lives.
Bundling. Bundlers involve themselves in fewer activities, but
they get more mileage out of those activities. They examine their busy lives and
look for areas in which they can “double dip.” For example, a group of women
gets together three mornings a week to work out. This accomplishes an important
goal for physical exercise, and at the same time provides regular social contact
and deepens their friendship.
Everyone bundles to some degree, but we also found a lot of “faux” bundling—a
version of juggling in which people fool themselves into thinking they’re
multitasking. The most egregious example is people who talk on their cell phones
from the “privacy” of a public restroom stall. Sure, they’re doing two things at
once. But is it really helping them feel more balanced?
The essence of bundling isn’t so much multitasking as “multipurposing.” Its
genius is in giving separate tasks greater meaning by putting them together.
Techflexing. Techflexers dream about leveraging technology to
the point where they can conduct their work from almost anywhere, anytime. The
key to their strategy isn’t just technology, but flexibility. Techflexers figure
out how to maximize the control they have over their schedules.
In contrast to jugglers, techflexers don’t use technology to increase the
work hours in a day. Rather, they use it to liberate those work hours from the
more rigid 9-to-5 structure, as well as to enrich their personal lives.
Simplifying. Simplifiers have decided they don’t want it all.
They’ve made a lasting commitment to reduce the time and energy devoted to
“non-essential” activities, whether at work or at home. The payoff, they hope,
is greater freedom—from stress, from minutia, from the rat race.
In the physics of work-life balance, simplifying strikes us as an equal and
opposite reaction to the craziness of juggling. Some people pursue it from the
beginning of their career. Others come to it after they’ve tried juggling for
awhile. In either case, a common characteristic is the willingness to make some
sacrifices—small ones, like “I’ve decided to buy only one color of socks,” or
large ones, like “I took a voluntary pay cut to work only four days a week.”
Rebalancing Your Life These five strategies—alone or in combination—have helped many people as
they strive to juggle less and enjoy life more. Not one is a panacea. Each
requires tradeoffs. Balance, like happiness, appears to be a journey, not a
destination.
But if you focus on rebalancing your life—making conscious choices and course
corrections as you go—the small changes can have a big impact. Work-life balance
isn’t an all-or-nothing phenomenon. Spending an hour or two per week on the
things that matter most to you can spell the difference between feeling out of
control versus feeling tired yet satisfied. And in a world brimming over with
meaningful opportunities and fascinating distractions, “tired yet satisfied”
isn’t a bad way to go.
Required
Labor Law Posters
Attractive, laminated poster
combines state, federal and OSHA required labor law notices on one
laminated poster.
Order Now >>
Get
free marketing, sales, advertising
and management ideas
delivered to your inbox.
The information compiled on this site is
Copyright 1999-2009 by Attard Communications, Inc. and by the individual authors.
Business Know-How is a woman-owned business and a registered trademark of Attard Communications, Inc.
Phone: 631-467-8883.
