Work Life Harmony
The -40 Concept
A little-known fact to the world is that at exactly -40 degrees Fahrenheit and Celsius are aligned, granted that is colder than any person would like to ever be in, it is the point where the two systems meet and then one over takes the other. Remember that at this tipping in the negatives that Fahrenheit will always be greater than Celsius from that point on, the same is true for our productivity. There is a magical number that everyone has which once achieved we no longer produce positive results of work. This is the negative forty concept.
Work-Life balance… What does that mean and why should you even care? Well if you have clicked this blog you probably have an idea what you are looking for. You need that help to find the path of handling your work load and personal life without feeling like you are suffocating, this has been a topic of many conversations in recent years and has grown this grand gesture of you can have your cake and eat it too mentality. The major flaw with this line of thinking is that you cannot put a number on how many hours to work etc. The whole conversation is a topic of bullshit… It would be like saying Tom Brady could go toe to toe with Tiger Woods at golf or vice versa with a throwing competition. Much like work can’t always win against your self-happiness and life sometimes you may need to tip the scale in a different direction. Also consider what may work for you may not work me, we work different industries and different positions, so how do we adapt? That’s the best way to think about this topic, adaptability, so let’s start with re-naming this with something a little more appropriate for what it is. Work Life Harmony that is what we need to focus on; Harmony being the key word to this, much like when a pianist will play in two separate octaves creating a sound that makes us feel warm and welcome the same can be said about finding that with your life. Sometimes we take on projects that require more attention at work and we must re collaborate our outside life to adjust for this, but what is your sustainable rate? How long can you go with pushing long hours, moreover, how many hours can you work in a week before you start creating a diminishing return. In economics the term diminishing return refers to the decrease of marginal production and plays a massive role in the production theory. The same can be said for us as people, we reach a point of diminishing return in our work after a certain percentage of dedicated time. Below you see that pushing past 50% of your time, approximately 40 hours since we have roughly 80 waking hours during the average work week, will start to affect the work load that you have, and it is directly corelated with your drive to keep going. A few things happen around the diminishment curve, first you have oversaturated your thought process of work I mean just think about it this way, are you more effective in the mornings and early afternoon than you are in your last couple hours of work? The answer is typically yes…
Not everyone will have the same Diminishing Return graph though, this is used as a baseline for the average company setting 40 hours as their full-time requirement, but it will change based on a few factors such as age, position, industry, and even stress. After the diminishment curve the -40 line hits, and as already introduced this is the end of positive production for time dedicated. You must be able to find your harmony and this graph can be used as a tool to identify that and can be done in a few simple and easy steps.
Step One: How many hours does your company require that you work in a week and in a day (multiple Graphs needed), put this going up on the left side of graph. Have this handy with you through the discovery process because the diminishment curve will occur not only daily but overall for a week. During your work day I want you to put a dot on the hour in which you start procrastinating, you know looking at Facebook or Instagram and avoiding work. This is the start of your diminishment, but it is also human nature, we still have more productivity in us so have no fear, as you continue your day I want you to put another dot on the graph whenever you feel as if your brain has hit that wall and cannot continue. At this point you have reached Diminishing return and are no longer being productive which inevitably leads to burn out… Keep track of these over a week and add up the total number of hours and where your points are on average for your daily and then you’ll have your weekly ability. Keep in mind that over time this will change as well, new assignments and business needs can shift things more heavily into work and we just must be careful of overexposure to this as it will cause burnout. You can also get burned out on vacation though, human nature dictates we need a feeling of accomplishment to feel happiness which is what makes us strive more and more in our profession. Vacations are needed to reset and reenergize us for a healthy life style but too much time can cause us to stress and lose our harmony as well, think about your last long vacation for a moment. At the end even though you wish it could carry on forever were you not burning to get back to work to get the affirmation of accomplishment through productivity? It is for this reason that harmony must exist in our life with work even if you are a stay at home parent that is still a full-time job and you must find your own harmony of things to manage your self well-being.
Available for download at GSConsultingfirm.com
After filling this out you may find it a little alarming because you may not be maximizing your time and find that you are not able to work nearly as much as you thought you were, or maybe you are working but not creating productive time in your work day. There are plenty of tools you can equip yourself with to find harmony though, including 5-minute resets, now what in the world is that?! Well to put it simply it is a designated time we can build into our schedule to take our mind off something specific and come back to it recharged. By this I do not mean get on your phone and check Facebook either, I mean take 5 minutes to re-collaborate your mindset, take a walk to the roof or window and look out at landscape, words of affirmation session, or de-clutter. There are many other tools this is just a short example list I recommend checking out this Blog for a more in-depth list and how they can be of more assistance to you. Life is about harmony simply because if we used a metaphorical scale we would never find that true balance, on the road to harmony though finding time to balance the mind is extremely important, this time is used to maximize your day, much like in music when the rest is used, it is not an end to something but it is resetting your ears to bring about a new sound.
This is just One exert from an E-Book that will be available for download early next month, with the remaining steps for work life harmony. Check out my website GSConsultingfirm.com or like my Facebook page to get updated details on this book and others to come!
