Missing Moments: Is Your Work Life Balanced?
What would your child say about your work efforts to “get it all done”?
Ouch! That’s a question that’s hard to confront. In our busy, overloaded lives, we often feel as if we’re doing the right thing by taking on so much, working to get ahead. We’re doing it for them right? But what does it look like from your child or your loved one’s perspective?
Several years ago I confronted this in my own life. I was inspired by the story of a man named Mohamed El-Erian. He was a man who seemed to have it all. As CEO of the investment firm, Pimco, he made millions of dollars per year (100 million actually).
He also had a supportive family... or so he thought.
One January, Mohamed was frustrated about having to argue again with his 10 year old daughter about brushing her teeth. His daughter, equally frustrated, told him to wait for a moment as she went and retrieved a piece of paper. It was her list of 22 special moments El-Erian had missed since the beginning of her school year. The events ranged from a parent-teacher meeting, to a Halloween parade to her first soccer match.
At first El-Erian defended the absences.
Then he took a closer look, one of those “look-in-the-mirror” types of looks, and he realized that his lack of work-life balance was hurting his relationship with his daughter.
“But it dawned on me that I was missing an infinitely more important point. As much as I could rationalize it—as I had rationalized it—my work-life balance had gotten way out of whack, and the imbalance was hurting my very special relationship with my daughter. I was not making nearly enough time for her.”
So... he did something about it... he resigned. El-Erian opted for a number of part-time jobs that would allow him to spend more time with his family, especially his daughter. In the article, Father and Daughter Reunion, El-Erian writes,
"I am the first to recognize that I'm incredibly fortunate to be able to structure my life in this way. I'm so grateful that this is providing me greater opportunity to experience key moments in my daughter's life before they're all too quickly gone."
I hear you murmuring. You're saying something like, "If I made 100 million last year, I could afford to step down too!" And El-Erian recognized his unique situation. What I was more intrigued by, however, was the list from his daughter and it's impact on El-Erian. As a parent of a then 10 year old daughter myself, I could readily identify with the types of items on her list, and how important they were in her young world.
What about you? You may or may not be a parent. But what about those important people in your life? How does your work life balance affect them in their lives?
As a way to prevent a similar crisis moment in your world, why not stop and make your own list of things you don't want to miss out on in their lives? Warning: once you get your list started, you could easily get carried away and you could find more than 22 items. Force yourself to be realistic. You will not be able to make every event every day (unless you're retired, and I hear those people are busier than ever). Instead, set a goal for the number of times per week, month, or year you want to make the activity or event.
When I sat down back then and created my own list, I thought about how I could build my day around those on the list-instead of making a list of all the things I needed to get done, and hoping I had time for some of them.
“I thought about how I could build my day around those on the list-instead of making a list of all the things I needed to get done, and hoping I had time for some of them.”
I've used the Juggling Elephants method of planning (3 rings: Work/Self/Relationships) for several years, but doing this seemed to add a new sense of urgency to planning for the non-work items. I then scheduled a monthly task to review the list and see how I was doing. I kept in mind that one of the biggest challenges we all face with work life balance is that we often don't recognize it until some major damage has been done to a relationship or our own personal well-being.
“One of the biggest challenges we all face with work life balance is that we often don't recognize it until some major damage has been done to a relationship or our own personal well-being.”
Upon my review, I would check to see if things were out of whack. At first, I would feel a strong sense of guilt if they were. But instead of beating myself up, I used it to encourage myself to find new ways to work more efficiently. I would be more motivated to deal with workplace and personal distractions. I would teach myself how to be done with the workday and really mean it. If I found myself checking off lots of items on the list, I would give myself a well-deserved pat on the back. Even better, I could enjoy a healthy relationship with those most-important-people, and that was reward enough.
Creating your own list might seem a little odd, but who knows? It might just prevent someone from handing you their list one day that you would rather NOT read.
