Finding Your Work-Life BLEND
Are you still trying to achieve that elusive work/life balance? Stop!
While cultivating different sides of your life is very important, focusing too much on finding a perfect balance can set you up for failure.
It’s time to forget about balance and strive for achieving a perfect blend instead.
A blend takes into account where are you NOW and strives to create a life full of both personal and professional accomplishments and joy.
Work and Life are not too opposing sides of consistently equal weight on some metaphorical scale.
There is an ebb and flow to them and different seasons (or even days) when they would appear widely out-of-wack on this balance scale but perfectly aligned in your ideal world.
How do achieve something that is such an esoteric concept?
If you are like me, you’ll probably appreciate this acrostic we created.
B-L-E-N-D: Boundaries, Like what you do, Expectations, Non-negotiables and Downtime
BOUNDARIES
The concept of setting boundaries is not new.
In fact many work/life balance gurus will focus on boundary setting.
But we have a different concept of boundaries.
Take a common boundary like no work after 6 p.m. There’s no flexibility or nuance in that. And it doesn’t take into account the big picture.
Another one is no work on the weekends. That doesn’t offer you a chance to plan your week more strategically (e.g. work on Saturday so you can watch your child play a carrot in the first-grade play on Wednesday).
The point of boundaries should be more about mindset, focus and alignment with your priorities rather than rules, schedules or strict structure.
Try setting boundaries based on intention and your goals. Discuss together and write them down. Again, be intentional. Focus on reasons, not rules.
Go ahead, talk about work, even on date night, but decide that the conversation should be about an exciting new project and not a stressful employee issue (schedule that for another time). Your boundary here is not WHEN you can discuss work but WHAT you want to focus on at that time.
I recommend reading this article in Psychology Today that offers an alternative to the concept of balance.
The idea, called the seven-slice approach, was first posited in David J. McNeff’s book The Work-Life Balance Myth. It looks at how you allocate your time as a whole. The seven slices are: family, professional, personal, physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual.
The idea is to decide the percentages of your time/energy you want to allocate for each and plan accordingly.
“Defining a life problem as work-life balance frames the issue as zero-sum. Adding time to one side of the ledger requires reducing time on the other. Framing the issue as a seven-slice ordinal problem allows for creative slicing and dicing between and within categories.”
LIKE WHAT YOU DO
The lines between work and life blur when you truly enjoy what you do.
This can help you avoid pitting the two sides against each other.
There’s a reason you and your spouse became small business owners. You have a passion - either a love of the industry you are in, the thrill of owning a business and/or the desire to have more freedom.
Whatever your motivation, you should LIKE being a business owner and know that sometimes work will blend into life and vice versa.
You should also LIKE your role within the business. If your role is a good fit those times when you need to do more (on-boarding a new client, for example) you won’t feel drained and left with little energy for the other aspects of your life.
Check out our blog post to find out if you and your spouse are in the right roles.
EXPECTATIONS
The key to finding the perfect blend often lies in perfectly defining your expectations.
These expectations are unique to you and your business.
What do you want from your business?
What do you want from your life?
What percentage of time do you want to devote to each of the key “slices” of your life (see above)?
Take time to think through the expectations you both have and develop a blend that best incorporates these. We recommend that you revisit these expectations often because things can change.
Think of it as your morning coffee.
You might use all of the same elements: coffee, sugar, cream, a flavored syrup, etc. But, the way you mix them might change depending on your expectations and circumstances: different ratios, different flavors, added extras (like whipped cream) and, sometimes, a brand new blend.
NON-NEGOTIABLES
Flexibility and adaptability are so important for couples in business.
But sometimes, you need to say, “No.”
As I mentioned above, as a couple in business you might need to change or redefine boundaries and expectations occasionally. That is totally understandable.
But an important, blend-seeking practice is to decide on a few things that you feel are non-negotiable.
These aren’t things you could categorize as No-For-Now, like taking on an employee or buying commercial property.
These non-negotiables are things that are SO IMPORTANT to you that the decision is made even before the question is asked.
For example, Glenn and I have battled cancer together since before we were married. One initial diagnosis of Stage II breast cancer and then three recurrences which showed metastatic disease.
(For more about our cancer journey, check out this episode and/or our first episode, which also talks about the Blend.)
Making sure that I stay on top of scans, oncology appointments and treatments is non-negotiable. Meetings will always be scheduled around these medical appointments. And, if we get bad news or need to prepare for another round of treatments we will take the time off needed. Luckily, our clients are extremely understanding (two of them are cancer survivors themselves). But we make it known how important this is to us.
Think about your values and what matters most to you to develop your own non-negotiable(s).
DOWNTIME
You can’t develop a well-blended life without thinking about your time off.
Everyone needs time to decompress and get away from it all - especially small business owners.
We discussed the importance of taking time off in this podcast episode.
The bottom line: take time off.
It helps prevent burnout and can actually make you MORE productive when you are “back at the office.”
And, don’t think the concept of time off just includes a multi-day vacation (although that is also a must). These breaks can come in the form of grabbing a coffee with your spouse/business partner or taking an afternoon walk to clear your head.
Downtime is an important component of the BLEND and should not be ignored.
The BLEND concept is basically this: find what works for you and makes you feel fulfilled in all of the aspects of your life that you find important.
Stop fretting about achieving a perfect balance.
Work and life should complement each other-not compete.
