| Work Life Balance Defined | |
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Firstly, have to admit that I am not a raving fan of the term “work-life balance” as it suggests two things. Firstly that work isn’t part of your life, which clearly it is, and secondly that the public (work) and private (home) parts of your life are separated by some divide. Is there some invisible barrier that you drive/ride through on your way to and from work? How does this work for people who work from home? Hmmmmm…….
I could rant on for quite some time about the reasons why the workplace is seen to be divided from our “private” lives and how this is perpetuated. But you could just read my Masters thesis on the culture of organizations and get a fair idea of my position on that one. Basically, it is a reflection of the principles of “business” that we have to be some contained, controlled, compliant, efficient operator when we are at “work” and we can be emotional, messy, free individuals when we are at home.
There are plenty of processes and organisation theories at work at the moment to try and rectify some of the long-term accepted behaviours in the workplace that don’t allow for personal expression and the recognition of individual talents and strengths. Thank goodness I work for an organisation that inspires new ways of behaving at work.
Extrapolating on that, I am a firm believer in the inability of most of us to leave our “selves” at home. I believe it was Alan De Botton who said, “Unfortunately when I went on holiday I realized I had brought myself along” or something with that sentiment. So if we are our selves wherever we are, the term work-life balance doesn’t really represent what it is trying to say.
Work-life balance is really about considering how many hours we spend on our money making activities compared to our leisure time and find a way to make that more equitable and suitable in relation to all the choices we have made in our lives. If we decided to have four children, how then do we manage their needs and those of our partner together with all the activities associated with our lives? This “juggle” is what the term work-life balance is trying to explain and in light of the fact that the workplace makes huge demands on our time and in an exclusionary way.
Interesting that when I am with my children performing "child care" duties, I can also arrange car insurance, check the emails, send some tweets, pick up the groceries, clean (some of) the house, and organize the family social calendar, and yet, when I am at work, I can only do “work” related activities.
The workplace can easily be a high maintenance and demanding child with unrealistic expectations. There are many ways that you can make it more flexible and also change your perceptions of what is expected and demanded of you in order to make it all more enjoyable. I don’t think I would ever have “got” this stuff until I had children and have learnt how to multi-task, how to flick my mind between one thought and another in a miraculous way, and to work out what REALLY is important compared to urgent. Love to hear your thoughts.
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