The Work Life Continuum - Work Life Balance is Dead
No company is going to give you "work-life balance." It is not a thing to give. I would even argue that “work-life balance" is dead.
Everything is work and everything is life.
Instead of looking for a “work-life balance” let’s reframe the concept and talk about how to design the life you want: incorporating both your personal and professional needs.
Seems easy, right? Stick with me, we are going to walk through a few different concepts to begin to make this happen.
In this article we examine:
The Work Life Continuum
Task Management
Life Design
The Work Life Continuum
Let's start with a thought experiment. Think about when and where you work. Consider times of day and location. Now think about how you work, i.e. the technology you use. Do you use it strictly for work or for personal things too. Finally, think about whom you work with and the conversations you have with them. All done?
Now that you have a pretty good idea about yourself, consider the definition of a continuum.
“con·tin·u·um
/kənˈtinyo͞oəm/
noun
a continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not perceptibly different from each other, although the extremes are quite distinct.”
Therefore, the “work life continuum” means to seamlessly move between working and personal moments throughout the day without much distinction.
The line that separates "I am working" and "I am not working" is blurry.
I did the above thought experiment and noticed that my work and personal life are:
In the same locations
On the same technology
Sometimes with the same people
No wonder it all blurs!
My goal is not to tell you to work towards some ideal. Some people have urged that we should have “work life harmony,” like Jeff Bezos in an article for CNBC or in this INC article. But to me, that is inapplicable to most of our realities. I can't control the times emails and projects come in, but I can design my reactions.
OK, so what do we know so far?
We know that the line between work and personal is blurry.
So what do we do next?
Task management.
Task Management
If you do not manage your tasks, they take up more space than they deserve. The goal is that your work is not a jumble of ideas in your head but a list outside of it.
Your tasks are not you, so get them out!
Whether you like to use paper and pen or a digital platform (my preference is Notion), you want to get your tasks into something. Then you want to categorize them and add priorities. I do regular brain dumps and add everything into a spreadsheet with categories like "Personal" or "Work" and a due date. From there I can sort by category and date. Boom! #Managed
A choice not to manage your tasks, is a choice to lose balance.
What's worse is that we lose ourselves. We can feel inundated with work and struggle to find ourselves.
My tip, every task goes straight into a list. Everything. Whether it's "email X" or "order envelopes" put it in the list. If it is all out of your head, then you are giving yourself the space you need to start to design your life.
Life Design
Here's the hard part...actually doing something about it.
Life design is value based task management.
Start by knowing your values. When you know your values, you know your priorities. This helps make decisions about when and how tasks are completed. It is important to know what you stand for so that you can execute, delay, or cancel your tasks.
For example, one of your values may be family time. The way you live the value is through quality time with your significant other after 6p. That being said, how would you design your life to live this?
Maybe you keep your phone on you, but you mute email notifications from work after 6p
Maybe you close all work programs on your laptop after 6p
You aren’t going to tell your job, “Hey stop contacting me after 6p.” The life you want isn’t contingent on their actions, it’s contingent on yours.
Besides knowing your values, it's important to know your limits. If a new project is going to bleed into every part of your life, is it worth it? Sometimes the answer is "no" and sometimes it is "yes." When you are steadfast in your time management, it is easier to know what you have the time do.
The world has changed and this idea of “work life balance” does not feel applicable anymore. I want to design a life where my work life continuum is reflective of my values. It’s not easy…especially when you love your work. But even when you love what you do, make sure that the life you are designing is the one you want.
What are some of your tips for managing your work life continuum? @zjellson
