You’ll never find perfect work / life balance. Try this instead…
“Work/Life Balance” is an elusive, magical unicorn we all want, but will never catch.
I used to think of my life in binary terms.
There’s “work.” Then, there’s everything else—the “life” stuff.
For years, I tried to balance them both with one another. But I failed over and over again. When I couldn’t balance them, I burned out.
Understanding the Work/Life Balance Unicorn
Life isn’t like the Scales of Justice.
It isn’t binary.
It’s not a perfect equation with a perfect solution.
It isn’t black and white.
The palette of life is a rainbow of imperfect grays. That’s why life will never "balance" out directly against work. WORK is a PART of our lives, not the antithesis of it. To find “Balance,” or something like it, we must think of our lives differently.
Ignore the Unicorn. Get a Different Model
Life isn’t a scale.
Life is like a mobile over a baby's crib or a solar system model you'd build for science class.
Some pieces are bigger and take up more room. The other pieces compensate enough for the entire system to remain in equilibrium.
Instead of work/life as either/or, think about life buckets: work, family, friends, hobbies, health, fitness, faith, education, growth…
The kicker—YOU choose what buckets get filled with your focus and energy. There could be times in your life when “work” is the most important. Other times when “health” is.
Work doesn’t oppose Life.
It's part of a dynamic system within it.
The trick is to see it as a larger system and fill the buckets to design the life you want.
—
Don’t seek balance. It’s the unicorn you’ll never catch. It doesn’t exist.
Seek harmony. It’s the freedom to see the nuance of life for what it is--yours.
6 Easy Steps to Getting Started with Life Harmony
To get you moving, take a few quick steps to reframe how you see your life:
Categorize your life - Identify all of the major buckets in your life. Use one-word descriptors to keep it simple. Don’t edit it down. Just let your mind wander a bit. If you’re stuck, here are some examples: work, family, friends, hobbies, health, fitness, faith, education, growth, creativity, finances.
Give your buckets weight - Take the list of your categories and circle the top three most important to you today. Be ruthless. You can only choose three. You should have a strong emotional reaction to them. These will guide the rest of your decisions
Check Check Check - Take the remaining categories and put a checkmark next to the ones you think are going well enough to leave on autopilot for a bit. These are the areas of your life that you may have had a recent win in. They’re the areas that don’t need attention right now.
Pick one in trouble - Of the remaining categories, what’s the one that you’ve neglected for too long? Is it in trouble? Do you need to tend to it right now? This is the part of your life that you may feel embarrassed by or tension with.
Cross out the rest - If it’s not a category of importance, good standing, or stress, let it go. Cross whatever didn’t make it through steps 1-4 with a fat marker. It’s not that they don’t exist in your life. Rather it’s that they’re not important enough to you in this season of your life and you need all the mental bandwidth you can muster. Also, crossing out stuff with markers is a fantastic experience.
Identify the One thing - Take a look at your categories. You should have three that are the most important to you right now. Those make up the bulk of your life and resonate with you deeply. There is also one category that is troubling you right now. Several more are on autopilot.
Take the troubled category and think of one thing that you could do today that, if you were to do it, would make your life easier. Here are some examples:
1. Work - Worried about how much time you spend at your job? Can you make stronger boundaries at work? Maybe you can change your hours (either immediately or over time) to be more in line with your other responsibilities. Do you need to have a conversation with your boss or supervisor to make it happen?
2. Finances - Worried about money? When was the last time you budgeted your expenses? Can you get rid of a few extra “wants” today (i.e. Netflix, Video Games, etc.) that will help you balance out your wallet in the short term? What are you spending most of your money on? Can you downsize anything to give you some breathing room?
3. Fitness - Feeling out of shape? When was the last time you went for a long walk? Movement is a key ingredient to improving wellness. Don’t try and go all out at the gym 7 days a week. You’ll burn out. Consistently doing an activity a few times a week over the course of a year is better than pushing too hard and quitting after a month.
Crafting a life in harmony takes time.
The things that are important you today will not necessarily be the ones that are important to you in five years. But working on the things that stress you out right now will help to bring your life into better equilibrium.
Use the steps above to check in with yourself once per quarter, 6 months, or year.
When you drill down to what’s important, you find clarity on the person you are today.
When you find the one thing troubling you and act on it, you become the person you wish to be tomorrow.
Continue to evolve.
TL; DR
Work/Life Balance doesn’t Exist
Life isn’t black and white. It’s shades of gray.
Seek harmony, not balance in your life.
6 steps to getting started with life harmony
Categorize your life buckets
Give your buckets weight
Check what’s on autopilot
Pick something in trouble
Cross out the rest
Identify the one thing to work on next
Act on that one thing
Check back in with yourself in 3-6 months.
Quote of the Week
Motivation for the days ahead of you.
“What's the ONE Thing I can do, such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”
— Gary Keller, The ONE Thing
That's all for now.
Stay creative, my friends—and have a great week!
