Mobility and work-life balance
As a life-balancer I wonder how I am ever going to have downtime from working again. How do you have a life outside work without work intruding?
Nowadays people work at home, on leave, even on honeymoon. Pearls Before Swine nailed it:
When my son was born, I got a call when my wife was in the second day of protracted labour, with tubes hanging out of her, to ask if there was any way I could be at the annual sales conference...
Those who know me know I am a passionate life-balancer. Once upon a time I wore a suit, and when I wasn't wearing it I wasn't working - that was my rule.
But that balance faces its biggest challenge with smart devices. More precisely, I do some of my best work lying in bed: quiet, relaxed. I also do all my communications with the rest of the world while laying in bed. All you Yanks and Euros email me while I'm sleeping.
Back when I smoked cigarettes, I was never one of those people who wake up and fumble around in the dark for the packet. But I often wake up and fumble about for my Droid, sometimes in the middle of the night if I can't sleep.
What does that mean for maintaining balance?
On the upside, I get up knowing half my emails have been done, this blog has been checked, tweets scanned, news read. The remaining emails are important - a smartphone is a pathetic platform for trying to do any complex work - but at least I get rid of all the crap before breakfast, and know what is left. I can usually have a leisurely breakfast.
On the downside there's no clear-cut delineation. I can be found working at any time 24x7. I suspect I work 70-80 hours a week, though I don't know. There are few true holidays. (I go to the mountains once or twice a year where there is zero communication with the outside world except walking back out. It is only a matter of time before 3G/4G mobile phone coverage comes to that valley...)
There's no big on/off switch any more, no work suit. Some evil genius worked this out when they introduced "business casual".
Of course it is worse for me because I'm my own boss. My boss is a bastard, the worst I ever had. But that only makes the problem worse for me, not different.
How do you keep room in your life for something other than work? Do you?
(I know Americans and Japanese may be puzzled by the question)
Made in New Zealand 
Comments
Not sure there is such thing "Work-Life Balance"
Rob,
Good points and food for thought. A while back, I came to a realization that perhaps there is no such thing as “Work-Life Balance” for me. I have since taken an approach of being “At Peace” about the work/family struggle.
These days, work and family are two forces that are way too dynamic to achieve a balance all the time. Many of us (the readers of the blog) engage in knowledge work, and it is quite dynamic and different from the more predictable industrial-age assembly line work. Family these days can be just as dynamic as ever, depending on your life style. I have found that, as soon as I do something on one side to achieve a “balance,” something quickly changes and thing are off balance again.
So I try to do the following on a daily basis. Plan and prioritize what I need to get done and what results I need to achieve. At a pre-determined point, just GO HOME and, where I am, BE THERE. I check the emails one last time before bed to keep tab on things, and, sure, I answer phone call from boss and co-workers. I don’t stay “plugged-in” to work the entire day.
My last point may be philosophical and open to debate. I am not sure work and family are two things that are ever going to be quite equal. Sure, we can probably integrate/overlap both to some degree but that will largely depend on the individual’s aspirations and constraints. I doubt my wife and children will ever want to integrate their family interactions with my work, nor do I expect that. I am in the camp that family is more important, and being digitally connected these days does not necessarily translate to detriment to family interactions. With those considerations in mind, it helps me to prioritize what I need to do on both fronts so I can be “At Peace.”
David Lowe
He's dead Jim
Kirk in all his resolve wanted Bones to save people that were beyond help.
I believe deeply that our digital online persona will take on their own work life within 10 years.
This is why I actively groom my online "body of work" so that it can take on a "life of it's own".
Unfortunately in 2012, things are just now getting started. If we look forward two years, the amount of global connectedness will grow by 100 fold.
So the notion that you have a "personal" life or a balance is just a fantasy IMHO.
Some people will force the issue and take time away to be with family, I see these people to be the ones who will ultimately start to see careers slip.
There is a reason most of wall street is high on modafinil, they can't keep up.
The only way forward for me personally is to make my personal life my work life.
I have worked actively for the last four years to do just his.
Most of my personal life is online and intermixed into my business life.
I now have just a online life and a offline life. Only my offline life has elements of "balance".
The following has been a result of this shift for me:
1. A lot of behavior that I used to like to share, I had to abandon or use tools to share differently.
2. Many people have the ability to judged more quickly without meeting me.
3. Being very restrictive about access to my digital persona has taken the highest priority.
At 43, I see the suit and tie world and the new full time online world clearly.
I do believe that our children and the next generation as they move to services like task rabbit, microwork and other types of instant on services, will find a way through this, ultimately capitalism and the forces that make FULL ON type of work will collapse under the weight of the shift.
Nice post Rob - you're
Nice post Rob - you're certainly not alone with this sort of lifestyle. I think what has worked for me is to do one or the other, but not both. So in my suit days I worked the prescribed hours and when the bell rang I was yabba-dabba doo, outta there. For the rest of that day, I wasn't working, it was me and the family, full stop. Like you say - it was easier when you didn't have a fully connected office in the palm of your hand.
These days I've gone "all in" on the blurry lines. So I work from home (with my wife), with a couple of different irons in the fire and two school aged children. Like you, you can find me working any time of the day - but you can also find me not working and at a school concert, or coaching my boys' sports teams, or have random coffees with people at just about any time of the day. So it's give and take now... and I make sure to balance the ledger of giving and taking to a point where I'm pretty sure everyone who is a "Ryan" stakeholder is pretty happy. (Although if you ask them obviously you might get a different answer!).
Keep balancing :)
losing on the deal
Agreed but that begs my question: HOW do you balance that ledger?
First: I'm working more than I ever did now
Second: work can intrude any time, as per the cartoon. And many bosses expect it to come first.
Sure we have more flexibility but I think most of us are losing on the deal...
It can be a win-win situation
I also frequently work outside my designated hours, but sometimes do personal stuff in those hours. Overall my employer gets more hours from me than they otherwise would, but I also benefit because I do family stuff at times that work for me.
A situation where we are both better off is a win-win, which is much better than either side losing on the deal.
flexibility
Yeah you are right. I may pine nostalgically for the good old days of forgetting work for 14 hours at a time (and WHOLE weekends!) but I can't see me ever giving up that flexibility.