Focus Experts Briefing: 6 Ways to Improve Work/Life Balance

May 10, 2011 Focus Experts included: Andrew Baker Kevin Beaver Eric Britten Bruce Hoag Steven Romero Laura Schroeder

Focus Research 2011

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Focus Experts Briefing: 6 Ways to Improve Work/Life Balance

How can busy business professionals achieve a true work life balance? topics: Expert Briefing Expert Content Human Resources Talent Management

Executive Summary Always-on, always-connected, on-the-go professionals can easily find themselves overworked, stressed, and unhappy with their careers as well as their personal lives. Lets face it, balancing a career with your life outside the office can be a juggling act. So how do you reach for the brass ring, yet keep your life from becoming a merry-go-round of commuting, working, and traveling for business? In this guide, Focus Experts Andrew Baker, Kevin Beaver, Eric Britten, Bruce Hoag, Steven Romero and Laura Schroeder share their advice on achieving work/life balance. After reading this guide, check out the entire discussion and join the conversation: http://focus.com/c/GKh/.

Expert Advice 1. Enlist the aid of family and friends when evaluating your work/life balance. 2. Manage your personal life as carefully as your professional life. 3. Draw firm boundaries, and stick to them. 4. Re-evaluate your priorities at regular intervals. 5. Develop yourself in areas beyond your primary business. 6. Instead of work/life balance, strive for work/life integration.

Focus Experts Briefing: 6 Ways to Improve Work/Life Balance

Focus Research 2011

Focus Experts Briefing: 6 Ways to Improve Work/Life Balance

How can busy business professionals achieve a true work life balance? 1. Enlist the aid of family and friends when evaluating your work/life balance. The first thing to realize about work/life balance is that the evaluation has to be made by the business professional in conjunction with their friends and family. What you may think of as balanced might not be viewed that same way by your loved ones. (Baker) If you are in a relationship (parent, spouse, etc.), then check with those around you to make sure that your balance is exactly that. Doing all that you want while shutting out those around you isnt balance. Its selfishness. (Hoag) 2. Manage your personal life as carefully as your professional life. Meaningful time needs to be set apart for your spouse, children and friends. Relationships that are untended will die. (We seem to understand this about business relationships, but not personal ones for some reason.) You should be used to creating schedules and prioritizing activities. Make sure you plan some downtime, including who is going to handle your responsibilities during the time you are away. Yes, emergencies happen, but youll be amazed at how many non-emergencies are considered catastrophic when they really arent. Set goals for your personal life just as you do for your business life, and make sure you keep on track with them. Start with simple things like blocking off time on your calendar each day for lunch. Simple, but if you dont have time for that, how could you ever get around to taking a day or a week off? (Baker) Track the changes you make and take stock at the end of each cycle of time that includes your activities. For most people, this is a week. For others, it may be as little as a day. Compare the balance you want with what you got. If you dont do this, youll never get a handle on what changes will give you the greatest return. The smallest tweaks are likely to give you the best results. (Hoag) 3. Draw firm boundaries, and stick to them. Once youve figured out whats really important to you it comes down to one thing: You have to be comfortable saying no. If you have a strong feeling of personal responsibility, thats much harder than it sounds. But if you cant say no, you can forget about work/life balance. The other thing to keep in mind is that there may be consequences for saying no. You have to be OK with those and find your own path to success. (Schroeder) Quality time is not meaningful if any and all can intrude on it. Hint: If youre leaving your childs recital to take calls every few minutes, then its not quality time. (Baker) Remind yourself that its your responsibility. Its not something that your company, your boss, or even your best friend should do for you. You have to do it and if you dont, others will achieve a balance for themselves at your expense. (Hoag)
Focus Experts Briefing: 6 Ways to Improve Work/Life Balance Focus Research 2011

If you remember one thing about managing your time and establishing a good balance remember what the late Richard Carlson said: Just because someone throws you the ball, doesnt mean you have to catch it. (Beaver) 4. Re-evaluate your priorities at regular intervals. You have to recognize is that work/life balance is a process. Its ongoing. Its not something that you do once, and then everything just stays that way forever. As your circumstances change, so will your balance. Youll always need to make course corrections. (Hoag) Realize that balance requires constant adjustment. What you need to do will depend on what life stage you are in at that time, including the age of your children if any. What works when you are first married, will not necessarily be effective when you first have children, or when your children have left home. (Baker) Whenever I feel that nothing seems to be going right, I do a check-in. It helps me see that some things are going right and also gets me focused on actions to get me out of my funk. Sometimes when I am doing a check in, I dont actually go through the whole exercise for all seven of the elements (finances, job/career, my primary relationship, other relationships (family, friends, social), spirituality, health, and community). At those times, just looking at the list may reinforce what I already know: that I need to work on a specific issue in one of the elements. But, again, it motivates me to write down what I need to do and how I intend to do it. (Britten) 5. Develop yourself in areas beyond your primary business. People with outside interests tend to bring more to the table as professionals than those who have not broadened their horizons in some way. If you have no outside activities, then do yourself a favor and get some. Then allocate the appropriate time to them and be successful in something thats not just about your primary business. (Baker) 6. Instead of work/life balance, strive for work/life integration. I am not a fan of work/life balance, because the notion of balance places work/life and personal life in opposition of one another. I am a believer in work/life integration. We should stop trying (and failing) to balance our two lives (work and our personal). Instead, lets try to integrate them into one life. I discuss the notion of work/life integration in my latest blog post (http://bit.ly/fMX1WE). (Romero)

Read the entire discussion, and join the conversation: http://focus.com/c/GKh/

Focus Experts Briefing: 6 Ways to Improve Work/Life Balance

Focus Research 2011

Contributors

Andrew Baker

Director, Service Operations, SWN Communications Inc. Focus Expert

Kevin Beaver

Independent Information Security Consultant, Author, Expert Witness and Speaker, Principle Logic, LLC Focus Expert

Eric Britten

President, Britten & Associates, LLC Focus Expert

Bruce Hoag

Work Psychologist & Business Coach, Dr Bruce Hoag Focus Expert

Steven Romero

IT Governance Evangelist, CA Technologies Focus Expert

Laura Schroeder

Global Talent Specialist, Workday Focus Expert

About this Report Focus Experts Briefings are sourced from Focus Experts who have exhibited expertise in the particular topic. Focus Experts Briefings are designed to be practical, easy to consume and actionable. About Focus Focus.com makes the worlds business expertise available to everyone. At the heart of Focus is a network of thousands of leading business and technology experts who are thought leaders, veteran practitioners and upstart innovators in hundreds of different topics and markets. You can connect with the Focus experts in three primary ways: Q&A, Research and Events. Personalize your Focus.com experience by following specific topics and experts and receive the Q&A, research and events of interest to you. Focus is easy to use and freely available to anyone who wants help making better business decisions.

Focus Experts Briefing: 6 Ways to Improve Work/Life Balance

Focus Research 2011