Rethinking life balance

And why “work-life” balance is passé

Working in Tech has many upsides — interesting problems to solve, casual work environments, inspiring people, opportunities for impact and financial upside. However, the most desirable jobs in the industry are also highly demanding. Just like everyone else around me, I’ve struggled at times to keep it all together.

In my mind, “work-life balance” presented an ongoing struggle between two disconnected parts of my life, with “work” always having the upper hand and me having to be disciplined and mindful in balancing out the “life” part. It was a zero-sum game. In that struggle, I taught myself to say no to “work” and I optimized my routines, so I could cram more of “life” into my days.

And while I had some success in getting and making more out of my days, it occurred to me that my model of work-life balance was all wrong. Here are my learnings:

The work-life balance construct is passé

I doubt our ancestors thought about their existence in terms of “work” and “life”; they just went about their days doing whatever was necessary and possible to survive, in one integrated experience. “Work” as we now think of it probably took shape during the industrial revolution, when people started to have a job that had nothing to do with what they did outside of it.

But nowadays, the lines between “work” and “life” are starting to blur again. Freelancers, entrepreneurs, writers, artists would have a hard time defining when they’re working and when they’re not. Many modern-day successful people tend to wear multiple hats and be involved in diverse projects, but all of them feel like lifestyles or passions or hobbies, instead of jobs. While they make money from some of these endeavors and do the others to satisfy a different need, all of these projects reinforce each other.

Even if you’re an employee at a large company, you’re experiencing undeniable shifts. Isn’t your most personal time — alone and naked in the shower — oftentimes when you solve your most challenging work problems? Or your strictly work time — at your desk, in the office — an opportunity to catch up on social media? Aren’t some of your closest friends also your colleagues? And there’s a good chance you’re already involved in activities that are difficult to classify strictly as “work” or “life” (for example, if you’re doing a side project, learning, teaching, writing on your area of expertise, etc.). So, when does “work” end and “life” start?

The two-scale model between “work” and “life” just no longer holds. Our modern lives require and enable us to have a portfolio of activities, some of which pay the bills, but all of which reinforce each other and are required to have a balanced life.

What if you replaced the “work-life balance” metaphor with a “life web” metaphor?

And just like a spider, you think of weaving a perfectly balanced orb web, stretching in multiple directions. When you need to make a leap in one direction to reach a far-away anchor, you rebalance the web not by scaling back in other parts but by building those out to keep the integrity of the web. That way, every new challenge in one area of your life, becomes an opportunity to build out a new, larger and farther-reaching orb.

So, success in this model has two considerations: preserving the structural integrity of your web by keeping it all in balance and continuously building out new orbs. If you use new anchors within reach, you can have a balanced but tepid existence, toned down to a familiar or comfortable level. However, if you want to strive for a more exciting and fulfilling life, you can leap for far-reaching anchors in different directions and build out the rest of the web to keep it all in balance.

So be thankful you just got assigned a mammoth project at work, and use it as the perfect trigger to sign up for that marathon!