Sure, we all want work life balance. But is it possible?

Do you feel as if everyone has work life balance but you? Do you look at pinterest boards, your instagram feed, and your friend’s facebook posts with a sick feeling of envy for all the calm they have, vacations they take, and fun in their lives? You’re not alone. For a long time I felt that everyone else had work life balance but me. No matter how I tried to arrange my work and my family and my everything else, my life was never balanced. I always had too many tasks, to many requests, to many demands… and too little rest. In other words, too much to do, and not enough to enjoy. In order to create a little me time (and get all my career and family obligations met), I created schedules for myself. Kept a daily to do list. Batched tasks. Read productivity books ad nauseum. Woke up an hour earlier. Went to bed an hour later. And so on.

And still, my life was not my own.

I realized I needed to address my out-of-control life several years ago, on an ordinary, insane day. I sat at my desk in my home office, staring out the window at passing traffic. In the background, I could hear my kids arguing. It was 6 pm and I knew they were hungry, but because of the day’s constant interruptions (texts, PTA emails, calls from teachers, a co-writer who kept calling me to talk about “important” elements of the book we working on, a dog to walk, documents to get into my accountant, and so on), I was late finishing an assignment that my editor needed. To help me, she’d moved the deadline from 5 to 6:30, but told me that if I couldn’t turn it in by then, I wouldn’t be paid. My head hurt, my eyes hurt, my left leg was asleep, my stomach was growling, my teeth felt fuzzy (did I forget to brush them?), and there was a knot in my hair that was distracting me more than the fight going on in the next room.

I looked up at my calendar. I’d written the name of a choral group I’d been waiting for two years to see. They went on at that night at 7 pm. Six months earlier— as soon as I learned this group would be performing in my city—I’d preordered a ticket for myself. Listening to live choral music was one of my favorite activities and it had been years since I was able to do it. But there was no way I was going to be able to complete this assignment, feed the kids and get uptown to the venue where the choir was singing. I yelled in the direction of the living room, where the kids were, telling them to shut up and make themselves sandwiches so I could work. I reached for a pair of earplugs and willed myself to finish the rest of my assignment, ignoring the tears of disappointment that were forming. Why was my life so unbalanced, I wondered. Something needed to give. But what?

Work Life Balance: What Worked For Me

To find out, I spent the following months studying the concept of work life balance. I read studies and books and interviewed all kinds of work and productivity and spirituality experts. I meditated. I journaled. I learned to say no. And what I learned was that work life balance was like the Emperor’s New Clothes. Something everyone spoke about as if it existed. But in truth, few people have ever seen or experienced work life balance. Knowing that I was not the only one who no idea what the heck work life balance even looked like, made it easier for me to find things that worked for me. Here are my top four:

Stop multi-tasking. A ton of research, including from the American Psychological Association, has proved what none of us want to hear: Multitasking affects our cognitive ability. There’s a lag time while your brain shifts attention from one task to another. And while it feels like this shift is seamless, it actually takes time. How much time? Research has shown that multitasking takes as much as 40 percent more time than focusing on one task at a time — more for complex tasks. In addition, there is the unpleasantness of being interrupted when you’re trying to get something done. Every text, email, phone call, Facebook IM, What’s App message was a small, but significant fire, requiring me to pull my focus away from my paid work and my parenting, so that I could douse the flames with my attention. One interruption is dangerous enough to your productivity. A non-stop barrage of electronic interruptions can prevent you from getting a task finished. When you consider that most of us get at least one electronic interruption every five minutes, it’s easily to see why so many of us struggle to complete our daily tasks. And the thing about an incomplete daily task, is it will get forwarded to the next day, to be rushed through so you can attend to tomorrow’s tasks. Once I committed to turning off all notifications (except my kids’ school and my husband), and keeping my phone out of arm’s reach, my ability to finish tasks (and finish them before their deadline) increased. My stress levels meanwhile, thankfully plummeted.

Stop using the term “work life balance.” I’m going to let you in on a little secret here: You cannot possibly balance so many things at one time. Not, at least, in the way you balance weight on a teeter-totter. That said, when people ask about life balance, what they usually want to know is how can they have more of what they want and less of what they don’t want. How can you have more pleasure and less drudgery? Personally, I think “harmony” is a better word than balance. To me, harmony means everything is co-existing in a spirit of cooperation. A much less guilt-inducing image than work life balance. After all, who wants to feel like they are the only one who can’t achieve work life balance?

Get clear on what matters to you, then focus on that. Ask yourself what you want to accomplish in your life—or in this week or day. And focus 50% or more of your attention on tasks related to that. What do you desire? Focus on it. Or focus on them, because if you are like me, you have several desires going on at once: For me, it’s living healthfully, having great relationships with people I love, running my awesome business, and working on a documentary.

Cut the time-sucking tasks that are cluttering your day. If you’ve gotten clear on what you want (see tip 3), you know what tasks are essential. If you need some help in this area, though, you can also ask yourself what is weighing you down? What isn’t serving you? What doesn’t need to be in your life? Have you identified a few things? Now get rid of them. Right this moment. (Or fix them. Pronto.)

While there is no such thing as true work life balance, you can call a truce between the things you have to do each day to have a smooth-running, safe, and secure life, and the things you want to do to have happiness, health and well-being.

Go ahead and get clear on what you need to do, and be willing to let go of a few things you don’t. I dare you. And see how much more harmonious your life can be.

 
Work Life Balance Resources

* American Cozy: Hygge-Inspired Ways to Create Comfort & Happiness (Sterling Publishing), by Stephanie Pedersen. American Cozy was written to help readers create comfort by pinpointing what is important, and easily letting go of what’s not. You’ll find simple, sane, practical systems and tools for creating an easy, powerful, joy-filled life.

* Balance is B.S.: How to have a work. Life. Blend. (Wiley Publishing), by Tamara Loehr. This gutsy book is a case against work life balance, by a brilliant, irreverent Australian author.

* Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (Riverhead Books), by Daniel H. Pink. Sometimes the question isn’t even whether work life balance exists. It is, why am I making myself crazy with activities I loathe? This is a must-read book for anyone whose life is jam-packed with meaningless obligations.

* How to Not Always Be Working: A Toolkit for Creativity and Radical Self-Care (Morrow Gift), by Marlee Grace. Prompts, quotes, and fun exercises to bring you back to center and encourage you to let go of what doesn’t matter in your life.

* Off Balance: Getting Beyond the Work-Life Balance Myth to Personal and Professional Satisfaction, (Hudson Street Press), by Matthew Kelly. What are your thoughts–do you feel that life can ever truly be balanced? Kelly looks instead at the idea of satisfaction to create a life you love.

* Stress Less, Accomplish More: Meditation for Extraordinary Performance (William Morrow), by Emily Fletcher. While this book isn’t going to help you clear off your to-do list, it is going to help you develop the mindset you need to stay calm and focused in the presence of multiple obligations. Do what you have to do, but more easily and more chill.

* The Well Life: How to Use Structure, Sweetness and Space to Create Balance, Happiness and Peace (Adams Media), by Briana Borten and Dr. Peter Borten. According to the Borten’s, the secret to living a sane, livable life–with fulfilling work and leisure, meaningful relationships, and time for oneself–is finding comfort in the face of chaos.

* To Do List in a Book (Go Into Greatness): A simple, brilliant way of deciding what to do—and what to ditch—each day.

* What Happy Working Mothers Know: How New Findings in Positive Psychology Can Lead to a Happy Work/Life Balance (Wiley), by Cathy L Greenberg, Ph.D. While you may not be the happiest of working mothers, this book can help you adopt some of the mindset and behaviors that can help you get through your day in a more comfortable, happier way. Studies have shown that children do better when their mothers are happy, making this book worth a read.

 

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