Embracing Change: Balancing Personal, Professional, and Family Life as a Software Developer
We’ve all heard of Work-Life Balance and the more recent term Work-Life Harmony. Achieving any sort of harmony between professional, personal, and family life can be particularly challenging for anyone due to the unique demands and nature of our professions. The demanding and often unpredictable nature of software development projects can lead to long working hours and tight deadlines, which encroach on our personal and family time. The ever-evolving technology landscape requires we continuously stay up-to-date, leaving little room for personal time. Check out my article on embracing continuous learning. Additionally, the complexity of software development leads to intense problem-solving and mental exhaustion, making it challenging to switch off from work and engage fully in personal and family activities. This has been, and continues to be, a challenge I face weekly. Balancing these competing demands requires deliberate effort, adaptability, and clear prioritization, as the peaks and valleys in our profession can easily disrupt the harmony between these crucial facets of our lives.
My approach is a combination of work-life balance and work-life harmony, it maybe better put as professional, personal, and family harmony not in priority order. Combining the principles to achieving professional, personal, and family harmony has been an ongoing journey for me. Rather than adhering to a strict order of priorities, I believe in fostering harmony across all aspects of life. Understanding that each facet may take precedence at different times allowing me to navigate the peaks and valleys with some grace. I say some, because I can definitely be better. I personally find it important to set thoughtful priorities that align with my values and goals, while remaining adaptable to the changes that come with life's unpredictability. Embracing the dynamic nature of my profession and personal life, I’m always striving to strike a better blend between my career, personal growth, and family responsibilities. This approach, not perfect, better empowers me to be present and fully engaged, fostering a sense of fulfillment and contentment that positively impacts not just my work but also my relationships and overall well-being. Achieving this harmony allows me to navigate the peaks and valleys of life with greater ease and resilience, creating a more balanced and meaningful journey. If you’re interested in learning how I define my goals and values, check out, From Potential to Progress: A Simple Guide to Discovering, Defining, and Achieving Goals.
I’m sharing my process here, but hope you understand it’s not perfect, therefore I highly recommend you take from it what works for you. :)
Defining a plan for what you have available and what you need
I’m a numbers guy, so I like to first understand what’s available to me. My normal weekdays include sleep (8hrs), work (8hrs), commuting (1.5hrs), meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner ~2.5hrs), and getting ready for the day (0.5hr). This is a total of 20.5hrs out of a 24hr day, leaving me with 3.5hrs for free time on weekdays. Similarly, on weekends, I include sleep (8hrs), meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner ~2.5hrs), and getting ready for the day (0.5hr). This leaves me with about 13hrs free. In total, that’s 240hrs (33%) spent sleeping, 176hrs (24%) working, 33hrs (5%) commuting, 75hrs (10%) eating meals, 15hrs (2%) getting ready, and a 181hrs (25%) a month of “free time.” This is assuming 30 days average a month, which make up 8 weekend days and 22 work days. After doing the math, I have a clearer picture of where my time is spent in the month. I can then be strategic about how and where I apply it. This clarity gives me a sense of ease especially when I’m not applying enough to my core values and goals. I might be spending a lot in a category right now, but I know the pendulum will swing in the other direction soon enough.
It’s importance for me to align my priorities with my values and goals. I then sub-divide the free time available, 25% (181hrs), into those core values and goals. For example, I’d like to spend 20% of it with my spouse, 20% on family time, 20% taking care of household items, and the remainder to goals, R&R, growth, or anyway I like. This doesn’t mean I hold myself to each min, but instead a general principal to root out any misalignment with my core values and goals. For example, if one of the kiddos has a track and field event on the weekend, yes it may take up some of the personal time, but it’s important to know that I can balance it out down the line.
Boundaries, apply them!
Balance is having boundaries and applying them, without applying them there will be no balance. As I start to allocate time blocks, I try to separate them into categories such as personal, professional, family. I break these down further based on my goals. For example, I break my “personal” category into exercising, R&R, meditating, gaming, and habits I’m trying to maintain. I sub-divide professional into projects, growth, research, networking, and strategic thinking. I sub-divide Family into time spent with my partner, children, pets, and household activities.
You should know, for me, it’s not an even allocation. This is why I lean more on the work-life harmony vs. work-life balance. Any one category at times can dominate the others. For example this month, my wife and kids took a small vacation, but I stayed behind to focus on getting a couple of critical work documents pulled together. This was a conscious decision that allows me to be fully present at our next get-away planned for next month. I know that it’s ok to have these peaks and valleys, but I’m careful to make sure a trend does not become the new normal.
I like to think of time allocation as a 3 dimensional pendulum, and the ground plane being my categories. I know the pendulum maybe in one category this week, but the pendulum will swing in a different direction. If it’s doesn’t, I’ll need to be the one to make it so through prioritization.
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Prioritize personal well-being
This brings us to prioritizing your personal well-being. I’m at times terrible at this, but with certain life changes I have to prioritize categories of life higher than others. When your kid is having a meltdown, it’s hard to prioritize relaxing or reading. When you have a looming deadline for a critical document in 2 weeks, it’s hard to prioritize hitting the links on the weekend. Though it may seem difficult or impractical, it is not impossible. When faced with a hectic schedule and looming deadline, it might seem counterintuitive to set aside time for relaxation or leisure activities. However, it is precisely during such demanding periods that these moments become essential.
The key lies in recognizing the appropriate moments for each activity to smartly and effectively prioritize task and time allocation. Instead of having my reading session in the middle of the day, when the kids might be throwing down, I choose to do it right before I go to sleep. At this time, everybody is tucked into bed and sound a sleep, except for me. I can create a peaceful haven for myself to enjoy a good book on my Kindle scribe with the lights off. Thank god for that backlight. By strategically scheduling this activity I’m able to prioritize my personal well-being. It’s not a matter of neglecting responsibilities, but rather a realization of when to address different aspects of my life.
Having said that, It’s ok to sacrifice once in a while, just don’t let it become a habit. It won’t help me stressing out about the looming deadline, while I’m trying to focus on getting over the water hazard on a dog leg right. I’m a terrible golfer, I need ALL the focus and luck I can get on the course. FOUR!!! I sacrificed the outing in lieu of time allocated to working on the document. Having said that, I make sure to stay within my timebound and to give myself energy back by prioritizing my personal well-being. That same weekend, I allocated a little extra time to listen to my favorite podcast and while I went on a little walk around the neighborhood.
Try it yourself
For those of you thinking of applying this, I recommend you first determine your high level categories and sub-categories then assign weights to them. The weights being the percent of time you would like to spend in each category in an ideal world. Next I recommend reviewing the past month and allocate the time to the appropriate sub-categories. If you’re unable to do so, I would highly recommend not changing anything and simply doing a better job tracking the upcoming weeks. This process provides visibility into how aligned we are with our values and goals allowing us to compare our ideal state vs. actual time spent.
This can be eye opening and help influence the right changes. If, after this exercise, you find you’re 100% aligned, then fantastic, you’re winning - keep it up! However, if you’re like me, you’ll find yourself misaligned from where you wished you were. This data is critical in helping me diagnose the core issue of where my time is being spent and helps me course correct. In my case, it was temporary peak in the office, so I set a target date for when I expected that peak to turn down and gave myself some grace till then. I set myself a reminder for the upcoming week to remind me if the peak crossed that boundary I would need to take a different action, such as taking a day or two off.
My approach is better put as professional, personal, and family harmony. After writing this article I think of it as PACE Life. Prioritize, Adapt, Change, and Embrace. I like to focus on setting priorities, being adaptable to life's changes, and embracing all aspects of life to achieve balance.
The most important thing is to?start?and?take consistent steps?toward restoring balance to your life. I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. How do you manage to stay in balance? What categories do you have? Do you have any tips and tricks to offer others? Share your experiences and insights, I look forward to learning from your experience...