Work/Life Balance

In the early months of the year, “Work/Life Balance” becomes a hot topic. How DO we balance our work with our lives?

In my experience, you have to swing between the two — assuming you don’t want it to be sterile and focused only on one or the other.

Most of us have to work to earn a living, so if you must spend a lot of time at work, make sure you turn around and spend a lot of time at home.

Maybe you work crazy hours durning the week, but the weekends are focused on your family and/or friends. The more I watch people trying to create balance in this regard, the more obvious it becomes that it’s not an easy task!

You will face challenges no matter what — the difference is how big of a challenge or how easy it might be to resolve.

As you reflect on what you can do to keep your life and your work balanced, I encourage you to think about what you can do to keep it swinging, and what you could do about creating “quality time” whether at work or at home.

Some people work for one or two hours then take a break. Some go home for lunch every day.

My experience has been that if you focus on a specific task for 3-4 hours, you get much more accomplished than if you were doing it a little bit here and there.

If you are working on a task, it is easier to focus your energy on it once. Same thing with your family — give them your energy for 3-4 hours at a time which could allow them to feel good about the quality of the time you spend together.

BEFORE YOU GO

We see our blogs as opportunities for dialogue. Please share your thoughts as comments.

1. How can you cultivate habits that allow you to spend quality time with your friends and family?
2. What can you do to keep this balance swinging? (Take some vacations!?!)
3. What other tools have you used to maintain life/work balance?

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Faris Alami is Founder and CEO of International Strategic Management, Inc. (ISM). He works internationally, presenting Exploring Entrepreneurship Workshops and other entrepreneurial ecosystem — related ventures.