Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago · 4 min. reading time · ~10 ·

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Work / Life Balance - and other Fallacies

Work / Life Balance - and other Fallacies

Work / Life Balance - and other FallaciesBody

Work

 

Soul

Community

 

Spirit

 

Family

There is much information available today on work / life balance.  I've tried for years to achieve it, and came to the conclusion that sitting in the middle of this continuum is a grand exercise in futility.

The problem for me is that there are so many more facets who I am and what I do than what I do at my work and what I do when I'm not at work.

So being the introvert who over-processes most every conundrum that comes my way, I've come up with a model for a balanced life that has worked for me for a number of years.

I got the idea from a fun, but very unreliable automobile.

Years ago, I acquired an Austin Mini (not the new sexy ones made by BMW, but the original Mr. Bean variety).  The car was affordable, but came with a particular temperament that required me to be under the hood (or bonnet) on a regular basis.

It was a very simple car, and so my marginal mechanical skills were sufficient to keep it going. It was also the most poorly designed car from the point of view that the distributor (the part of the engine that decided which spark plug would fire when) worked best when dry and sheltered from the elements.  The engineers must not have been thinking well that day since this bit of the engine was positioned pointing out to the front, right where all the rain would come through the radiator grill.


Work / Life Balance - and other FallaciesBody

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It was a mystery to me why a car would be designed this way, especially when it came from a country where it rained more than it didn't.  This design of the engine ensured that when it was raining, the engine misfired terribly, and sometimes I would limp home running on two of the four cylinders.

When the distributor was dry and all the cylinders were firing, the little engine ran as smooth as silk. Which gets me to the point of this post.

Our life is not a work / not work continuum, but is made up of multiple parts - I count six.

So instead of a work/life balance, I approach it much like a six cylinder engine. And like the little engine in my little car, they all have to be firing in order for my life to be running smooth.

The six components of a balanced life are below.  The first three are all about you, your "self" and include:

  • Body - This is our physical body. The one we exercise (or at least tell your wife that all the stairs you do at work are the same as an intense gym workout). Taking care of our body does involve healthy eating, exercise, and getting the right amount of sleep.
  • Soul - This is your mental health. This involves your maintaining a positive attitude, feeding and nourishing your mental health, through learning, reflective times, reading, or other activities that build and refresh your mind.
  • Spirit - I believe we all have this area of our person that acknowledges that there is something, or Someone bigger than ourselves, something with eternal significance that influences and can potentially guide our life.  Some call it religion, some call it faith, some call it spirituality, some call it a relationship with God. While you may disagree with my expression of my faith, for me this is critical, and my faith provides me perspective and hope that comes from a source far greater than myself.  

The next three are external:

  • Work - This is your career, your job, how you earn a living. This one is easy for most people to categorize
  • Community - These are the people outside your immediate family who you interact with regularly. It may be your sports team, your community clubs, your volunteer activities, your gang of motorcycle buddies (OK maybe not).  
  • Family - These are the people closest to you. Your partner, your kids, your parents. This is the core group that you describe in your Twitter bio (Husband of one... father of two... etc. ) These are the people you drive countless hours during holidays to be near.

Those are my definitions, you may come up with your own descriptions.

The next step is to draw up a matrix of six boxes.  Label the boxes with the six categories (cylinders).

Work / Life Balance - and other FallaciesBody

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Next, sit down and set some tangible goals in each area.  These are tangible, achievable things you know you need to do.  For example, in the Body box, you may put in "go to gym more than once a month".  Under Family, you may put in "Hire a babysitter and have a date night at least monthly".

You get the point.  These aren't hard to come up with.

The key is to have approximately an equal number of goals in each box.  If there are too many in one area, your life is likely out of balance, and you lose the opportunity to have equilibrium.

Check off your goals as you achieve them.  When you strike one off the list, add another. When I have this simple tool in place... Surprise! My life seems to work much better. When I get out of balance, my life runs rough, just like that silly little car in the rain.

So quit beating yourself up because a work/life balance seems so difficult to achieve.

Perhaps this seems like the kind of banal idea only a person who would ever consider owning an Austin Mini might come up with.  If so, what do you do to maintain balance in your life?

____________________________________________________________________________

Image: Kevin Pashuk (Thanks to a colleague for letting me 'shoot' his car.)

A version of this post has previously appeared on LinkedIn

About the Author:

Work / Life Balance - and other FallaciesBody

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Soul

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Spirit

 

Family

I'm the Chief Information Officer for Appleby College, in Oakville, Ontario Canada, where my team is transforming the delivery of education through innovative application of technology.

I'm convinced that IT leadership needs to dramatically change how IT is delivered rather than being relegated to a costly overhead department.

In addition to transforming IT in my role as CIO, I look for every opportunity to talk about this... writing, speaking and now blogging on BeBee, LinkedIn (https://ca.linkedin.com/in/kpashuk), ITWorld Canada, or at TurningTechInvisible.com.

I'm also an avid amateur musician and photographer (but not at the same time).  Check out my photostream on Flickr  or on beBee hive: serious-amateur-photographers



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Comments

Robert Cormack

7 years ago #27

Thanks, Kevin. #39

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #26

#38
Thanks Robert... Let me put in a plug for your book "You Can Lead a Horse to Water, But you Can't Make it Scuba Dive"... Highly recommended for the "Soul" box... I thoroughly enjoyed the read and the storyline.

Robert Cormack

7 years ago #25

Good post, Kevin Pashuk. I'll make sure I'm running on six cylinders from now on.

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #24

#36
Thanks Sandra... I lived in British Columbia, Canada where all the Brit ex-pats feel at home in the pervasive rain. I love the UK, but I'm smart enough to bring my Wellies when I go. '

Lisa Gallagher

7 years ago #23

#34
It sure is Kevin, well said!

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #22

#33
Thanks for pulling this one up again Lisa. Prioritization of life is an ongoing challenge.

Lisa Gallagher

7 years ago #21

A buzz worth revisiting! by Kevin Pashuk

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #20

#31
Thanks Sarah for visiting. My brilliant wife has always said, 'If you want to know what's important to a person, take a look at where they spend their time.' It is good to know how we spend our time, because it reveals our priorities.

Sarah Elkins

7 years ago #19

I missed this one last summer, Kevin Pashuk, so I'm really glad it popped into my beBee feed this afternoon. This is a good strategy for prioritizing, and I know some people who would love this exercise. I also appreciate the idea of looking at the number of goals related to each segment of our lives; I can't make myself separate into those pieces because they are all so interrelated. It's a good idea to consider where we're spending our time and energy, and make sure that our priorities are conscious, intentional, and help us avoid regret. Good post!

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #18

#29
Thanks for visiting, and sharing this post Nikki.

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #17

#27
Thanks Robert. My darling wife is both amazed and frustrated that I am singularly focused in my tasks. When she cooks, she is not only preparing dinner, mopping the floor, talking on the phone with our kids, and counselling someone via text messages. When I'm in the kitchen, it's more like "Get everyone out of the house! Be quiet! Can't you see I'm boiling water here????" Actually, it's not (quite) that bad, but like you, I tend to focus on the task at hand. My matrix above is a check point to make sure I'm giving attention to all the areas in my life that will need attention at one point or another.

Robert Cormack

7 years ago #16

Nice post, Kevin. Life balance is truly the hardest thing to accomplish (even when you've figured out the shortcomings of the Austin Mini). Rather than try to find life's balance, I prefer to separate them out, working on each individually. Some are easier than others, some are a bitch. If we try to accomplish all at once, we tend to fail or give up. Focusing on one at a time gives us hope and confidence. During the writing of a book, for instance, I have no interest in anything else (except health). I'll go months without talking to friends, but if I get the book right, I become a talkative bastard. Dealing singularly gives us a starting point (and, God, we need starting points). With each success, we move on, improving the others. Think of it as a mainframe with lots of slots for more memory. We all want more memory (just in case we actually accomplish something).

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #15

Thanks for sharing this again Tony Rossi!
Kevin Pashuk I really enjoyed this buzz. Thank you. Life is great, and there is only one, that is the reason why we are here to enjoy, and taking easy. I am taking apart negative people from my life.

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #13

#20
Thanks Lisa, and thanks for the share.

Lisa Gallagher

7 years ago #12

The picture of the car is really cool Kevin Pashuk. I think it's great that your art students drew pictures of the car. Love the matrix boxes and the 6 components of a healthy life. Real goals one can achieve, even if just one goal a day is written in the boxes. My son and daughter both have date nights with their spouses once a month. I wish that concept would have been around when we were younger and raising kids (well even if we weren't raising kids). I see that as a very healthy aspect to a relationship. My daughter is so cute about it- you'd think she was going out on a date with her boyfriend, not her husband! That's how it should be :)) Thanks for this.

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #11

#18
Thanks Aleta.

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #10

#15
Thanks for the comments and share Karen. The car actually belongs to one of my team. He had it parked in the circle so the art students could draw it. I keep a camera near so was able to get a shot.

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #9

#13
Thanks for the compliments Aaron Skogen. I do tend to agree with you about the listicle - even though a number of my posts have them. I did a fair bit of blogging for a technical magazine and they wanted blogs that had "5 Things..." in the title. I'm not proud, so any newer work will try to avoid it.

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #8

#10
The original Mini will forever be in my heart Dean Owen. While they were an engineering force to be reckoned with, and would go practically anywhere, they weren't about to be acting as limos for the rich and famous. My son bought one of the new minis, and while pretty, it missed the mark on so many points for those of us who experienced the original. It's much like those who insist tofu is a great substitute for steak, having never tasted the wonder of charbroiled beef.

Dean Owen

7 years ago #7

Unlocking the internal secret of happiness - an exceptional thought process ruined only by your assumption that the new BMW made Mini's are sexy and the original Mini, Car of the Century, was a piece of junk. For that reason, I give you one star! Let's not forget the Mini Cooper S won the Monte Carlo rally 3 times in the 1960's! (Angryface)

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #6

#8
My mini also had 4 wee cylinders Ken Boddie, but my life has 6... so I had to expand the model to fit my life. That car was a wonder. With your butt approximately 3" (7.5cm for those of you who are younger) off the roadway, it was more like driving a go cart. It would feel like you were doing 100 mph, then you look down and realize you were really doing 30.

Ken Boddie

7 years ago #5

Don't want to spoil the imagery, Kevin Pashuk, but I thought the original minis had an Austin straight 4 cylinder engine? They certainly were unique vehicles, much more so than the modern day BMW revival, and the only car you can comfortably drive down stone steps. Thought you might enjoy this clip of the Italian Job movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtWkewqIFDM Wont't do much for your life balance overall but may add a couple of positive to the soul box. 🚗

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #4

#6
While I fit in the driver's seat quite comfortably, it was more comical to watch on the days it was my turn to drive for the car pool. There were three others. One was average (like me). The other two looked like a taller and rounder (respectively) version of Laurel and Hardy. Squeezing those two in the back seat always made me chuckle seeing 'Laurel's' knees up by his ears. It's a good thing it wasn't a long drive.

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #3

#3
I do find Paul \ that if I'm the only one who puts thing on my list, my life is in good balance. Unfortunately (while I love her dearly), I am married to someone who is a gold medalist at thinking up new things for me to do...

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #2

Special thanks to @Emilia M. Ludovino who's post https://www.bebee.com/producer/@emilia-ludovino/how-to-stop-feeling-overwhelmed-by-work reminded me I had written this one some time back.

Kevin Pashuk

7 years ago #1

Special thanks to who's post https://www.bebee.com/producer/@emilia-ludovino/how-to-stop-feeling-overwhelmed-by-work

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