Work-Life Balance

Hello Dear Friends,

How was the weekend? I hope it was good and not too busy. And what's your week going to be like? Mine is going to be really busy and I'm seeing myself finishing the work I need to do over the next 3 days as late as 9 pm.

This led me to thinking about work-life balance. This used to be a trending topic back in the day, not sure if it still is. One thing that occurred to me as I was thinking about this is that the question was mostly posed to women. Surely men also need to balance their work and other life? The assumption that keeping the home and kids is the primary responsibility of the women is probably responsible for the question being focused more on women. Men do need to make time for the family as well and I wonder if this is indicative of the fact that some men don't spend as much time as they should with the family? One more thought - why is work being separated form life? Isn't work part of life?

OK, leaving controversy aside, let's talk about the intent of that question. How do we balance all the things we have going on in our life - work (and/or academics), family, friends, church, societal obligations etc?

Reading through Ecclesiastes this morning, i surmised that seasons is the answer. Let me back track a bit. In answering that question in the past I always said its about realizing that at any one time, one thing will take priority but always being careful to regularly rotate the priorities so that all the parts get some measure of priority at different times. So for example, if I've had a particularly long week at work with 9 pm closing times, I should take things back a notch as soon as I can, to rest a bit and spend time with family that was definitely neglected during those 9 pm days or weeks.

So it's not so much about balancing everything equally at the same time, but giving priority to each at different times so that in the grand scheme of things, every part gets relatively fair amount of attention. Notice I was careful not to say equal. Equality might be tough for some but that's what we try to attain. Don't beat yourself down if you don't achieve equality, please. In different seasons the weights will differ.

So back to seasons. This deserves a whole separate post on its own and we'll probably do that next week but I'll just say a few things as it relates to today's topic. In the early years of motherhood for example, that season requires that the children be given a much higher priority as you are laying the foundation for their life. So you find that some women may choose to take relatively easy jobs that allow them to work normal hours and doesn't involve taking work home. I know this isn't always the case. Different circumstances and sometimes personal ambition doesn't always allow family to receive a greater priority during this season. If you can, it's good to give family the priority during this season is all I'd say.

In contrast, for a man, the first few years and maybe decade of work would probably give more priority to work. He would work as hard as he humanly can be because he wants to achieve giant career strides very quickly in anticipation of being able to take things easier by an early age.

When that season ends, the priorities change. A woman may take on bigger challenges, go back to school, reignite a career etc. Family no longer requires as much time because the kids have been grounded and can live relatively independently. Unfortunately, this may be the time the man is looking to take things easy, work smarter, not harder and spend more time with family. Conflicting priorities seem to happen now sometimes, it seems.

What about singles? Children would probably be replaced by friends and societal or church obligations, which are easier to manage. Maybe I should add to that list looking for Mr. or Ms. Right. That's a whole different pressure on its own isn't it? And our African culture ( or is it just Nigerian?) doesn't make it easy at all. The season of single-hood is a perfect time to achieve those career goals very quickly before family enters the equation. I encourage single people to maximize that season and enjoy it.

So, I'm trying to reach a conclusion at this point. Balancing life as a whole is about recognizing that multi-tasking is a myth, in my opinion. You can only really truly do one thing very well, at a singular moment in time. Rather than trying to hold many balls at the same time, give priority to one, do it well and then move on to the next part of life and do that well as well. Hopefully, within any given cycle of time (month, quarter, year) you will have given almost equal attention at different times to the various parts of your life such that in the end, it all balances out.

Now it's time to go face my very long day! Enjoy your day and week and I'll catch you next week. Till then, Blessing on you and yours.