Working from home or living at work?

The quest for the mythical work/life balance
Since we’ve been able to work from anywhere, many of us have found that work has become an ever present thing. A quick search on google brings up thousands of articles about it the strains that people are putting themselves under and the lack of focus that causes. And we all know that “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” so what do we need to do about it?
Essentially, as work no longer has physical boundaries, we need to think about setting up some mental ones. That then leads us on to the next stage — the quest for the mythical Work/Life Balance.
When we talk about work/life balance. it’s usually in the vaguest of terms. Things like:
- Spend more time with the kids
- Spend less time answering emails
- Spend more time socialising
- Spend less time at a computer screen
- etc…
This are all laudable goals but they are very difficult to actually do, mostly because there is nothing really concrete about them. Any quick search on goal setting theory quickly brings up Locke and the concept of SMART. The first two, S and M are ‘specific’ and ‘measurable’ — so basically we’ve failed on pretty much all of those goals and we’re only two letters in.
When thinking about this, it occurred to me, that I didn’t actually know what a balanced life even looked like. I was seeking something expecting “just to know” when it was right. That’s a bit risky for my tastes so I thought i’d try something else.
Designing the perfect week
Clearly stumbling across the perfect work life balance wasn’t going to happen by chance so instead so I grabbed a piece of paper. I was going to work out what that balanced life actually looked like. After several attempts, that proved to be way too complicated and vague, so I narrowed it down to designing a perfect week. What I was looking for was a week where i’d covered all the stuff that’s important to me and that I would be excited to get started on come Monday morning.
To begin with I wrote down all the different things that were important to me but tried to be more specific this time. Time spent reading with the kids, time working on client work, time spent out with the family, time working on my own projects etc. I then added the stuff that wasn’t fun but was important, cleaning the house, doing the accounts and the like.
I then laid it all out in a calendar, allocating time in chunks to everything on my list. It took a bit of organising but I got there in the end. It looked like a really good week — I could look at that and see time well spent. I felt good about it.
So it feels good, but does it actually help?
In short, yes — it’s made a huge difference.
I haven’t got there yet but that’s OK. I got close once but then I got sick for a day which messed everything up. I’ve found that the ‘perfect week’ itself has changed over time and i’m always tweaking and adjusting it. I suspect I never will get to the ‘perfect week’ and actually I think that is a good thing. It’s basically a target to aim at and when thinking about our lives, there will always be room for improvement.
However, I can already see a marked improvement across the board. I am spending less actual hours working, but i’m seeing a significant improvement the quality of those hours so productivity is actually higher. The time spent with my family has improved, not least because I know that the other parts of my life are getting enough attention, so I can safely let go and relax more.
I think the key difference though is that i’m acting with intention. More of my time is being used in a way that I choose, progressing and improving the things that are important to me. That feels so empowering and i’m seeing an increased momentum in everything.
Work/life balance is not something you find, it’s something that you make
It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely a good start. I read somewhere recently that work/life balance is not something you find, it’s something that you make and just doing this gives me a kind of recipe to work to.
I could go on, but I need to stop now as, i’ve come to the end of my ‘writing stuff’ block for today.
