Truth be told, the idea of everything being in balance on a daily basis is a myth. - Dave Ramsey
Based on what I’ve learned from talking to people over the past decade, there is no clearer path to misery than attempting to live the lie that is work/life balance.
Achieving perfect work/life balance is impossible — for starters, there simply are not enough hours in the day for us to exercise, walk the dog, have meaningful interactions with our kids, read a book, learn something new, eat good food, help others, meditate, nurture our relationship with our spouse, be sexy, drink a good wine, watch a great TV show — oh, and do our full-time work. You won’t ever be in perfect balance and you’re going to drive yourself, and the people around you, nuts if you’re always trying to get there.
Recently I was talking to a founder I met at the Business of Software conference this year about being out of balance.
Business is going well for this guy, but he is frustrated about one thing: his success is causing him to be so busy that he doesn’t have time to do the very thing, his passion, which led him to start his company in the first place (his company makes software for CrossFit gym owners & athletes).
I don’t think anyone can achieve perfect work/life balance, especially if you’re running a startup. Stop trying. Think of it this way: if you even have the luxury of contemplating work/life balance in the first place, you’re ahead of 90% of the world’s population. Maybe 95%.
Is there a middle ground between the guy who decides that “life is too short” and moves to Brazil to surf full-time, and the guy who works 20-hours days? I think there is but it starts with killing the work/life balance myth.
So how about this: instead of aiming for perfect balance, try prioritizing your days based on the top 3 things you care about. My top 3 priorities are cliché, but true. They are:
- Family
- Me + Friends
- Work
Using these priorities to guide my daily decisions has really helped me feel like I could better pay attention to all the areas in my life that need to be nurtured without feeling guilty that I was letting someone down or something slip.
Free yourself from the myth of work/life balance and focus on what matters most to you.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
David,
Some good points. After 9 startups (founder in 2 and early employee in most), I think what founders and startups needs to “kill” first is that myth that you can handle/manage everything (often perpetuated by investors tell CEO he/she needs to manage and product and day-to-day).
How do you live longer, not get aneurism from stress, and actually run your venture (or perform for your team) better?
1. There are some things you can control and for other things you have to build “reaction mechanism”. This allows you to stop stressing about things you can’t control and that stops sapping enormous amounts of energy. That is how operations people, like myself, live in order not to crash from enormous load of responsibility.
2. You figure out what makes you most happy and surround yourself with people who love to handle things that make you miserable, because those things make them happy. You can always find resources to do that, if you really want to, and that is how you scale yourself. This goes for home (e.g. get a maid twice per month and see what that does to your relationship with your spouse), friends (spend more group time than 1-on-1 time), and work. You admitting you don’t have capacity for something you are not good/efficient at does not make you worse leader, employee, etc., it tells the world you are good at what you do and want to amplify output in that area.
Hi David. I’m normally not one that comments on blog posts, but this one rang so true to me that I had to stop and make some time and just say, “Well done!”.
This is really so true. Values are crucial. If I haven’t defined them, then I’ll most probably live in guilt my whole life because I cant do everything I want to.
I’ll think through this and do a blog post on it as well.
Thanx!
Steyn Viljoen
It’s funny how it’s considered a myth, especially because I actually feel pretty balanced between work and life. How? By discarding the weird relationship we have with time now a days.
Take the prioritised list of things you care about. Don’t you feel you want to be doing more of all of them? If you had more time, wouldn’t you want to spend more time with family, friends and do more work? We constantly try to do what we do faster and more efficiently, but for what? Only to take on even more, and try and do that faster, and then take on more, etc. It’s an endless loop.
I found myself doing this as well and decided it needed to stop and take more time for stuff. And instead of trying to thing how we can do it faster, so we can do more of it, I ask myself: “how can I enjoy this more”. I ended up taking time to cook, sit at the kitchen table to eat with my girlfriend, and accept that moving something to the next day is just not a big deal. I stopped wearing a watch, which is really hard at first, but is really liberating after a while. When I want to do something new I ask myself: “will this make me happier in the long term?”.
In the end, I feel a lot better. When there is no worry about time, there also isn’t a worry about balancing it. I ask myself if this will make me happy long term. I’m healthier, nicer to be around and actually way more productive and motivated in anything I do.
Stop worrying about time and ask what makes you happy.
I create balance by dedicating days to priorities.
Saturday night is for my wife. Sunday morning is for church.
The trick is this:
1. Making peace your limitations. I wrote down my limitations, both natural and self imposed. Doing this help me feel okay about them and not to blow them up into something bigger than what they are.
2. Everyone knows about my priorities. Friends don’t call me during date night in the job doesn’t call me during church. actually, my job did call me during church one time but they apologized profusely because they knew how much they were interrupting me.
If people take the time to do the 2 things I did they would take away a lot of anxiety they having about work life balance.
First: I agree, achieving all the things I want in total unison is impossible.
Thank you for the write up. I have big goals and high standards. I know I can’t achieve it but I still get frustrated sometimes. Human.
Creating a routine helps me achieve most of what I want in a day. Same wakeup, sleep, work routine everyday (save weekends). Worth a shot for those who haven’t tried routines strictly.
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