Balance is Bogus

Is there actually a way to achieve the dream of work/life balance? Yes, but it may not be in the way you think.

The Four Burner Paradox

“In order to be successful you have to cut off one of your burners. And in order to be really successful you have to cut off two. ”

My classroom of fellow MBA’s all nervously laughed at that comment as we listened to the day’s lecturer, a successful former real estate investor, preach about some of the “hard truths” we were going to encounter in our quest for personal achievement the moment we left graduate school.

Our speaker had been quoting the now famous “4 burner analogy” (originally popularized by a New Yorker article ) used to describe life’s perpetual work / life balance predicament; an old square stove with 4 burners on it, each one representing an important area of your life: family, friends, health, and work. As our guest had ominously implied, you can’t have all 4. You may even have to settle for 2 if you cared at all about making something of yourself professionally.?

The class discussion eventually moved on to other topics, but I left the room that day feeling unsettled, as I suspected many of my peers did as well. It was something I just couldn’t shake off. My entire life I had dreamed of finding success - real success, in all aspects of my life. I wanted (and still do) what most people do: an impactful career, a happy marriage and family, great friends, a healthy/fit body, financial success, and even time for personal hobbies. In short, the works. And now I was being told that not only was this impossible, but I was naive to believe otherwise.?

Fast forward five years and I now understand exactly why the nervousness behind the laughter in class that day was justified. Working 40-50 hours a week as the Director of Strategy for a growing tech company takes an enormous percentage of my available time. Ditto for trying to raise 3 (soon to be 4) kids with my amazing wife. Two “burners” (family & work) already maxed out without even accounting for trying to exercise on a regular basis, get enough sleep, plan our family’s personal finances, maintain a healthy social life with friends, stay in touch with extended family, or even finding a few spare minutes each day to read & write (2 hobbies I love).?

Catch-up conversations with co-workers, friends, and peers from grad school confirmed that I wasn’t the only one feeling the crunch. Most of us felt that our days were a constant scramble from one thing to the next. Others confessed a permanent subconscious guilt at neglecting things they used to care about like exercise or hobbies in order to devote the requisite “hours at the desk'' their new job required. “Time is a scarce resource” might be the understatement of human history.?

“Work is no longer something we go to. It’s something we do”

All of us wonder if there’s a way to cheat the system. A secret method or app that will help us unlock an extra 5 hours per day, be in two places at once, or slow down the incessant demands on our lives. Hermione Granger’s (of Harry Potter fame) “time turner” device was never more needed! Work / life balance has become the holy grail of our generation. But it’s become increasingly difficult to achieve.?

This is largely because work is no longer something we “go to”, it’s something that we “do”. That is a direct result of technology that allows us to work on almost anything from almost anywhere at any time we wish (or need to). Improved tools and technology, for all of their benefits, have blurred the lines between our professional and personal lives (if such lines ever existed in the first place).

Laptops allow us to bring work with us wherever we go, including the airplane seats en route to our vacations or through the front doors of our homes. Bosses, colleagues, and customers can reach us 24/7 via email, IM, text, or call via the phones that are omnipresent in our pockets. These days no one ever buys the excuse that “you didn’t see the message” given how the average person checks their mobile device up to 58 times per day .

Another trend, mass globalization, makes it even harder to disconnect from work.? Most companies these days have workers all around the world. Many of us are now very familiar with working with people across a huge range of time zones (and the late night/early morning calls this requires). It’s increasingly common to tell your family you can’t come to the dinner table because you need to attend an urgent Zoom meeting with a co-worker in India, Japan, or Ireland.

When you’re deploying a global workforce, it’s nearly impossible to establish anything like a normal “8 to 5” workday that satisfies everyone’s schedules. The consequence is a hodgepodge of hours that allows you to overlap with every one of your international colleagues.?

All of this is only exacerbated by the new world order, remote work. The remote work revolution was always inevitable, but its timeline has been massively accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Remote work is a double edged sword, and although I ultimately believe its benefits far outweigh its cons, there’s no denying that it has made it much more difficult to establish clear boundaries between “working time” and time for literally anything else. When your physical home is also your physical working place, it’s hard to know where to draw the line in the sand. Do you join that optional Zoom call or play with your kids? Do you respond to some emails or help out with the dishes??

During the industrial age there was usually an “end of shift” factory whistle that signaled to all the workers that it was time to put down their tools for the day and return home. Our modern workplace has no such clear indicator and as a result many of us have a hard time knowing when to “call it quits” for the day.?

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The Spinning Plates

So, is there a way to do it all? Is work / life balance actually achievable? One of the best insights I’ve ever heard on this topic comes from an analogy from American religious leader, David A. Bednar, who once responded to a question about how to possibly juggle all the responsibilities we face at home, work, personal hobbies, church, etc, as follows:

“Balance is a false notion. You can only do one thing at one time. If you are attending to your family, by definition you are neglecting church and work. If you are at work, by definition, you cannot attend to the immediate needs of your family or church. So when you’re home, be home. Not at work, not at church. Be home. When you’re at church, be at church. Not at home. Not at work. Be at church. When you’re at work, be at work. Not at home. Not at church. Be at work.?

There are some important lessons from that illustration:

Principle #1: There is an optimum number of plates that each of us can spin.?

It’s probably the case that you cannot spin 17 plates. Instead we need to identify the top 2-4 plates that always need to be spinning. To put it bluntly, some things are nice and other things essential. Most things we identify as “critical needs'' are actually just wants. Don’t allow yourself to think that you’re superhuman and capable of spinning more plates than the average person. You’re not the exception to the rule. The key to success is not somehow finding some magical ability to manage more and more of a workload; rather it is in recognizing your limits and determining to be excellent at the few essentials rather than spreading yourself thin over the many “nice to haves.”

For me, this has meant saying “NO!” (politely of course) a lot more often, including to requests at work. It means looking at my long wish-list of things I want to get done and coming to peace with the fact that many of them will never get done. I’ve had to learn to let go of the FOMO on all the things I’d “like” to do (ex: real estate investing or volunteer teaching), and instead go big on the few things that matter most to me (ex: having dinner with my family, taking time to read & write)

Principle #2: The plates never spin at exactly the same speed at the same time.?

The acrobat is able to achieve their seemingly impossible balancing act by putting their attention on the plate that is closest to falling and breaking, and over time ensuring that all plates receive a spin at the appropriate moment. You cannot, and should not, try to multitask on all your “plates” simultaneously. We’re at our most successful when we stop trying to ignore the realities of tradeoffs and instead accept that we can only do one thing at a time, or only one major project at a time.?

It’s also worth noting that there is a “time and a season” for everything in our life. For example, when I was in MBA school, late nights were often needed to take care of homework assignments and my thesis work. My wife and I jointly agreed that some things (ex: spending as much time together in the evenings as we’d have liked) would take a backseat during my MBA. That was our sacrifice for that season of our lives. But we then later made a conscious decision that I would start spending evenings with my family when I started my current job in corporate strategy.?

Principle #3: Knowing “when” each plate needs to be spun is important.?

Once we’ve accepted that we can’t spin every plate in our life at the same time, the question then becomes “how do I know which area of my life needs attention when?” My advice = trust your instinct. Deep down, you know in your gut where you should be focused. We all have an intuitive sense for what is actually most important. Listening to your inner voice is a great way to identify whether you should spend some time with a loved one vs. “run that errand”.?

Here I would also offer a caution against only spinning the plate that is screaming the loudest for attention (which usually is either a short term pressure from work, or a siren song from a distracting hobby we enjoy). If we follow that “short term” line of thinking, we’ll often end up sacrificing things that really matter in the long run like our health, our relationships, and ultimately our happiness. We end up as the well paid, stressed out, miserable professional “success” we swore we’d never become.?

I experienced this just last week. I had a big project at work that was causing a lot of stress. Naturally, I felt that the best way to get myself peace of mind would be to simply get the project done. But coming home from the office that evening it was abundantly clear that my kids had given my wife a “run for the money” that day. I made the snap decision to spend time with her, just talking and watching a fun show on Netflix instead. The work project didn’t get done that night, but I have zero regrets about the decision. The “work plate” wasn’t the one that needed attention. The “husband” plate was. It’s a choic I don’t always get right, but I’m glad I listened that time.?

Becoming a Professional Plate Spinner

I still don’t know if it’s possible to have all four burners (health, work, family, friends) on at full blast all the time. It may not be. But I do believe that learning the secrets of plate spinning (& accepting that true “balance” actually isn’t possible) is the best hope I have to figuring that out.?

If someone else finds a better way, please let me know. I may even put down one of my plates to make time to talk about it.