Harvard Business Publishing

Hey Paul,
You've heard of "mi casa es su casa." Well it's comforting to hear that "su neurosis es mi neurosis." I've got the same dilemma with balance.

My role model for dealing with it is the person who juggles chain saws in Venice, CA. He needs to be deft at grabbing and letting go or else he will lose an arm.

The formula I've come up with is: "Everyone and everything in life competes for time, they don't compete for importance." Your wife is your most important wife; you children are your most important children; your job is your most important job; your parents are your most important parents, etc.

The key is to find a way to cause them to all feel important. You do that by being totally present in each of your roles by giving the other person or each task your undivided attention vs. being distracted by something else when you are in each of those roles. In those latter cases you shortchange everyone.

Not only do chain saw jugglers know when to grab hold and when to let go; effective attorneys or financial people know how to shift from one case to the next and be fully attentive at each. And with practice so can you master it.

By the way, one of those roles is to be fully present with yourself and making/taking time for what you enjoy and for you attending to your health.

If you'd like to find out how to spend quality time with your kids on a low quantity time budget, check out: http://www.dailyspeculations.com/wordpress/?p=2616

Paul,

As one of your authors, I empathize. It's 10pm and I'm sitting here writing comments on your blog post about technology overloading us. As I do it, my wife says, "What are you doing, honey?"

Of course, she's just stopped answering day job email on her computer. The only thing stopping her from going back is a cat laying on her hand.

So what do I do? Try to type more quietly.

My addiction has been aided by going wireless. The tech guys at my day job fixed up my laptop and now I don't need to plug it in on my desk. I can sit on the couch and just keep keying. This is, I think, a bad thing.

So much for my attempts to stop working.

http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/silverman/2008/06/stuff.html

Godspeed Paul, I can only hope you don't read this until tomorrow.

I have just gone back into a fully-paid job after 6 years running my own micro-business. In my own business my home PC was my work PC, my cell-phone was for personal and work purposes and my livelihood depended on how hard I thought.

But now I work for a corporate - I have a cellphone I can switch off when I finish work and a work laptop that I can close and not be interrupted with work email when checking eBay or twitter.

Sounds great - division of work and home is complete. Except it's not perfect. Working for myself I had choices of when and how I worked - and that's where the real power lies - making your own decisions.

Negotiating between home and work is hard - so reducing the number of participants from family / earning a living / client expectations / boss by one reduces the difficulty by half (the maths is that the difficulty is 2 to the power of the number of participants) - so reducing from 4 to 3 reduces the complexity from 16 to 8.

A problem Ican relate with! I have spent too much of my life 24x7 I recently read "Why Work Sucks And How To Fix It" by Cali Ressler et-al

In their concept of results only work environments - the above problem goes away.

I am a bit sceptical (and asked a question on their blog) for some of us to do - but to feed the flames - give it a read!

Louis Brandeis said: "Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant."

A work-life balance coach gave me a tip a couple years ago. She said print up your calendar from the past 3 months and highlight in three different colors which time slots were devoted to: work, family, and self (including how you spend your unscheduled time, i.e. if you're on your blackberry most of it, it's not exactly free). Then look at the different colors and you will get a pretty graphic representation of how balanced you are. It can be pretty revealing.

On a different topic, I would be interested in who besides me has become too addicted to their blackberry and how to detox off of it.

I think the boundaries are important. They not only help one maintain a private life, but they enhance your work life as well. As a writer (and full disclosure, I often write for HBSP), my best insights and ideas come on those early morning walks with the dog or after a weekend away. So I guess even when I am not working, I still am on some level. I don't have a Blackberry but unlike spouses, children, parents and friends, they do come with an "off" button.
I am currently researching a piece on stress for this Web site -- what I am learning is that while some people can handle a lot of stress, it can lead to burnout and serious physical problems for others. And Paul, you say you are burned out. So I'd say forget what works for others, hang on to those boundaries. The work conversations may go on 24/7, but the other ones in your life are finite. And having that private life will only enhance the quality of your work. So while I don't have a magic answer for how to stop working, perhaps this can help justify why you should.

Dear Paul...

To borrow an old saying from someone else....
the last thing you say on your deathbed will NOT be: "I wish I spent more time on my Blackberry"...
make the time for what's important to YOU...which will require spending a good deal of "mental time" figuring that out...

PUT IN ON YOUR CALENDAR... EVERYTHING.... DR. APPOINTMENTS, KIDS BASKETBALL GAMES, CHURCH, DATE NIGHT WITH WIFE....

TAKE NOTHING HOME....NOTHING MAKE IT A CLEAN CUT WHEN YOU WALK OUT.

I DON'T USE BLACKBERRY....I CHECK EMAIL FROM HOME...IF I WANT....

YOUR RIGHT...IT'S NOT EASY....

Dear Paul:

After previewing Stewart Friedman's video interview on this website, I bought the book and recommended it to a senior executive. I appreciate Stewart Friedman's principle about meshing/integrating work and personal life. I'm not an executive, I assist them. Nevertheless, my work/family schedule is just as hectic.

The blackberry was meant to aid us in our busy, insanely hectic lives. I trained myself to stop checking my blackberry after let's say 7 pm. If I see something, I simply delete from the handheld. Surely it can wait till the next morning, and I can respond by importance. If not, I would have received a very urgent call, right?

I'm with you in reclaiming "life". When I'm burned out, I stop, literally stop and clear the senses, take a break for 30 min or an hour and then go over my "things to do". No one forces me to work 24/7, it just happened. I concur with Judith Ross with her comment about stress, how some people can handle a lot,and that it may lead to burnout and physical problems. It happened to me.

Best regards,
Maria G.

Folks,

What is required here is perspective. In 80,000 years this planet will be completely frozen and all life forms gone. In 100 years from now, YOU and mostly anyone that would remember you will be gone. If you spend 10 years giving your life (i.e. working late / weekends, missing kids gorwing up) to an employer then leave the company, do you think your boss is going to ring you up in a year to see how you're doing? Or bend over backward to help you in a tough situation? You all know the answer is No.

I hate to be harsh here, but the truth and my point is that if your work is bringing your life's satisfaction, you have a pretty empty personal life.

Blackberries were meant to help people while they are away from the office (read: business trips) not to extend the working day. LEAVE YOUR PHONE AT WORK; LEAVE YOUR LAPTOP AT WORK. If you get fired for not responding to an email at 9:00pm is really the company you want to work for?

I suggest creating a huge personal challenge for yourself, one that you thought never possible. Breaking that down into smaller, more achievable goals, riding that path to achieving it, will bring you much more happiness than any promotion at work.

We're living in a world with "work life balance coaches" to tell us how to life and food scientists to tell us how to eat. Funny, that human beings thrived for thousands of years, yet in the last 100 we need scientists and coaches to tell us how to life.

In closing, like I said, it's about perspective. Would you rather be telling stories about how you made that African safari happen or how you rose through the ranks to become VP? No more lip service, no more wanting....just make changes now.

This was a timely post as over the past two weeks, I've finally eliminated the main barrier to the division of work and personal life: syncing Outlook from work, my Google calendar for personal events and syncing both with my Blackberry. I can honestly say that I have less stress. Partly from having everything accessible at any time and partly from ruthless cutting out everything from my live that doesn't align with a goal. I have said no more often and I don't feel guilty....it's a great feeling! It's amazing to have conversations with co-workers and agree that the effort should stop because it is not aligned with a specific business inititative.

Everything is not critical, everything does not need to be read and everthing does not deserve to be answered.

Even well tuned machines need rest and maintenance.

I think it's all about what suits your personality. Some people really thrive on combining work and home and feel that both their families and their jobs benefit. (I am one of those; I like feeling on top of all things at all times.) Others just feel haunted by work when at home and haunted by home at work; they need firm boundaries. (My mom is an example; she started her own business and felt like the work stress never, ever stopped. She much preferred a 9-5 she could leave behind when she went home. )

I think we need freedom for people to find the method that works best for them.

How to disconnect from the blackberry...here are several suggestions.

1. Breath...atleast 10 before reaching for it. Enjoy the moment and you might realize that it can wait. Yes, its addicting, thus the crackberry moniker, but it is not your lifeline. I've been in too many meetings where folks miss out on what is being discussed because they were busy checking e-mails. I've been guilty of reaching for it while driving just because I saw the blinking light. Definitely not a good thing.

2. Trust that everything is ok. Let go of the notion that your the only person that can save the world and you need to know when disaster strikes. Unless of course your a doctor. Even that warrants a call and not an e-mail.

3. Stop signing up on e-mail lists or RSS feeds and such. When you need information take the time to check the website. You might get more doing that than through an e-mail blast.

4. Is it your way of connecting to people? Wouldn't a call be better? Or a visit? Thinking how you use it might give you insight that blackberry is not the only tool to get things done.

Thanks all for the discussion items. I am interested that integration of work and life has been a solution for some, but not for others.

To me Stew Friedman is on to something. I support integration because I can bring the rest of my life into my work time - and thereby get balance that way - and I have a technical aid. In the past once I got to work and started the day I just did not think of anything else for the entire day - I just totally zoned in on my work. Recently I have found that syncing my home calendar with Google calendar, means both my partner and I can check our combined calendar while at work and add items as we think of them or as they arise. I open it on my work PC as soon as I arrive and can check the items for the day very easily. This has improved our attention to our family contacts, social life, health activities etc., We put everyting in there and colour code the items in calendars labelled "Time with Family", "Spend time on wellness", "Organise our life" etc.,.
So Work no longer takes primary importance, yet my output has not suffered - just my attitude to work has changed - as I feel happier and more rounded. My work has become a means for me to enjoy my life more rather than a thing that separates me from living.

The thought of the "walls coming down" scares the daylights out of many people. There are many more who need structure, provided by a corporate environment, around them to be productive, some even need the structures as a substantial input to their identity.
For these, the work/home balance is not a debate about the priority between the two, it is also a question of their own sense of order and control, and without the 9-5, Mn-Fri routine imposed on them from the "outside", they are unable to function.

Alle Roberts

Just don't take things so seriously. Relax. If you knew you only had a month/year to live, would you continue to live the same way? Your answer is there. How you do it, depends on your circumstances and will be unique to you. In other words, once you learn to let go, the solutions will appear by itself. Hope this helps.

Hi,
I read the discussion with some interest.

I was particularly dismayed by how technology has made this world a much more complex place to live in. It has done good in a lot of areas but we need to make sure that technology does not become a master that enslaves us in our lives, both personal/business, friend/colleage, online/offline etc.

When someone says "I want my private life back," it is acknowledging that one has reached the limits of one's level of openness to the technological opportunities. Any more will tilt the balance from happy work to burdensome toil. As a technologist myself, I feel that one way to take our private life back is to tackle the tendency of people toward uncritical embracing of multi-tasking. The link is below.

http://yapdates.blogspot.com/2007/12/taking-multi-tasking-to-task.html

It is also written from a Christian perspective about the need to adopt a Sabbath day of rest as another way to ensure we live a more balanced life. Personally, I believe it is beneficial for everyone, not just for Christians.

conrade

My comment here is similar to what I posted on the "confessions of an unrepentant Blackberry addict" blog:

My plan is to retire at 40 (perhaps temporarily), and one of the things I look forward to is chucking away my mobile phone (currently Nokia Connector).I do not want my work life intruding into my personal life. I was the workaholic type, doing 60hrs minimum every week and daily checking email even when on vacation. Now I do 60hrs once in a long while and I hardly check into work while on vacation. It suits me just fine and I am the happier for it. Different strokes.

We live in a world of emergencies today, where professional and stressed go together, and are the expectation of our new achieve-achieve!-achieve!! society. The pressure to achieve means people are loath to admit/accept small weaknesses (rather conceal them while they snowball) - no wonder the global economy is in crisis today.