How many of us are putting in more than 40 hrs a week? even in countries where working time is proscribed by law.
What are we doing? Does this scenario sound familiar: "Working longer and longer often doing what we don't enjoy and being less and less productive; getting home late, if at all, and being unhappy, complaining to the one person who can do nothing about your workload - your wife or partner.
The next day we start again - we ponder our problems while we commute; get in the office and complain that your wife or partner wife is not happy about the time we are working, to the people who cannot do anything about it" And so the cycle continues.
One day we might pick up a self-help book that proclaims the solution to our problem - and most books are true to form: Write a To Do List (or some other title for the same thing).
Exercise - you will feel better about yourself.
Make Time - get up one hour earlier.
Before I take these 3 solutions apart it is important to state that Corporations are not to blame, it is inherent in any corporation that they will try to get the absolute maximum benefit out of any resource for a given cost.
Dress down Friday is nothing to do with Work Life Balance, it just means you can save time getting changed at home on Friday or you can go straight to the Pub after work.
On site Creche are another thing, nothing to do with WLB - they just mean you can spend more time in the office, the same as on-site Gym's.
Also if a company gives you split hours to collect children from school that is not WLB, neither are flexitime hours, if you are still working more than your contracted hours.
What do we do at work - Do you have to start early and finish late every day and put in 60hrs (or any other number to suit your circumstance) a week including your Sunday morning, if you do and you actually have 60hrs worth of work then you should be compensated for that or you should get out! But do you really have 60hrs worth of work? In most developed Western Economies if a company wanted a Factory or Shop worker to do 60 hrs they would have to pay overtime or give additional time off.
- it just does not happen for salaried workers.
Why Self Help Solutions do not work Write a To do List - This is just the perfect way for human kind to justify why they are doing the hours they are.
If you are supposed to work 20 hrs a week you will create a 40hr list and if you are supposed to work 40 then a 60hr list.
What use is such a list - you can show it to your wife or partner to justify why you are never home but I bet you never show it to your boss - why - because he might ask you to justify why any particular job might take so long??? Oh and do not forget to put at the end of your To Do List - "Write tomorrows To Do List" (30 minutes) - and if you insist on lists remember not everything on your list is High Priority because if it is you list has No Priority.
Exercise - Let there be no doubt exercise is good for you and will make you feel better.
But lets be clear you generally have to exercise in your own time, even if the company has a gym on site.
So your 4 hours of exercise per week + changing time etc is another 6 hours out of your time.
If you have nothing else in your life don't let me stop you but if you have something else that needs doing then it must suffer and it does not matter how fit you are it will not fix what is hurting.
Make Time - Get up 1 hour earlier! you are doing 60hrs a week at work, commuting another 5 - 10hrs.
I must assume that everybody is at this moment getting just sufficient sleep after taking time for recreation, learning, family etc, etc; I never hear someone on a Monday morning at 0700 say "I could have done with less sleep" - so how can getting less sleep be beneficial? If your WLB issue is not enough family time - do they also have to get up 1 hour earlier? The latter 2 points do not address the issues of WLB and the first only serves to justify to YOU why YOU work so much.
So why do the majority of people at all levels have an issue with WLB.
I believe we need to address 4 things: Fear Understanding Choice and Kinsman ship (I challenge you to forget this acronym).
Once we have addressed these in relation to ourselves we should also consider that those who work for us have exactly the same issues.
What is good for the Goose is also good for the Gander.
We have to understand our Fears in relationship to WLB.
Sit down and think about them and the consequences.
If I don't work 60hrs my Boss will be annoyed and fire me.
If I keep working such hours my health will suffer.
If I complain about work my peers will advance ahead of me.
If I don't make more time for my wife or partner they will leave me.
I do not spend enough time with my children.
My family no longer know me.
Now work out what is most important to you like this: This Job or This Relationship? - Advancement or Early Death? - Family or Company? - Money or Life? Understand what is important to you; Understand what is important in your work; Understand what is important to your partner; Understand what is important to your children.
Understand the implications of the contrasting Fears above.
Understand which you fear the most and address it.
Make a choice and make a positive choice no matter how difficult.
Choose to talk to your boss or change your job, choose to use your time better at home, choose to work hard now so you can retire early, choose to get rid of your partner or wife - It does not matter what you choose to do, only that you do make a choice.
Without making a choice and taking action nothing will change.
Kinsmanship is about social interaction about having a kindred spirit.
Do you really know your work colleagues, your customers, in fact any of the people you interact with on a daily basis.
Do you socialize with work colleagues outside work or do you only share the moaning about how you all have too much work.
Do you know your neighbors and what they do, do you share any interests? Are you a member of a club or society, are you a member of that society with your wife or partner.
As Human's we are social animals we have an in built need to interact but the modern world has driven us into Silo's, our own protected zone where our level of interaction is increasingly by electronic means.
There is a growing issue with human interaction at work and its decline or the total lack of it.
The same is true in our personal lives.
We no longer ring our wives to say we will be home at a certain time - we text or e-mail.
We no longer write thank you notes (I mean using a pen and paper) we don't even call we just text or e-mail.
We don't need to visit extended family so that they can see the kids growing up - we can e-mail pictures every few months - You get where I am going? Getting Work Life Balance right is down to you, not the company, not some consultant, and certainly not some bu sines guru in a book.
You and you alone can recognize the problem and do something about it.
Take a serious look at your Fears, Understanding, Choices and Kinsman-ship!
What are we doing? Does this scenario sound familiar: "Working longer and longer often doing what we don't enjoy and being less and less productive; getting home late, if at all, and being unhappy, complaining to the one person who can do nothing about your workload - your wife or partner.
The next day we start again - we ponder our problems while we commute; get in the office and complain that your wife or partner wife is not happy about the time we are working, to the people who cannot do anything about it" And so the cycle continues.
One day we might pick up a self-help book that proclaims the solution to our problem - and most books are true to form: Write a To Do List (or some other title for the same thing).
Exercise - you will feel better about yourself.
Make Time - get up one hour earlier.
Before I take these 3 solutions apart it is important to state that Corporations are not to blame, it is inherent in any corporation that they will try to get the absolute maximum benefit out of any resource for a given cost.
Dress down Friday is nothing to do with Work Life Balance, it just means you can save time getting changed at home on Friday or you can go straight to the Pub after work.
On site Creche are another thing, nothing to do with WLB - they just mean you can spend more time in the office, the same as on-site Gym's.
Also if a company gives you split hours to collect children from school that is not WLB, neither are flexitime hours, if you are still working more than your contracted hours.
What do we do at work - Do you have to start early and finish late every day and put in 60hrs (or any other number to suit your circumstance) a week including your Sunday morning, if you do and you actually have 60hrs worth of work then you should be compensated for that or you should get out! But do you really have 60hrs worth of work? In most developed Western Economies if a company wanted a Factory or Shop worker to do 60 hrs they would have to pay overtime or give additional time off.
- it just does not happen for salaried workers.
Why Self Help Solutions do not work Write a To do List - This is just the perfect way for human kind to justify why they are doing the hours they are.
If you are supposed to work 20 hrs a week you will create a 40hr list and if you are supposed to work 40 then a 60hr list.
What use is such a list - you can show it to your wife or partner to justify why you are never home but I bet you never show it to your boss - why - because he might ask you to justify why any particular job might take so long??? Oh and do not forget to put at the end of your To Do List - "Write tomorrows To Do List" (30 minutes) - and if you insist on lists remember not everything on your list is High Priority because if it is you list has No Priority.
Exercise - Let there be no doubt exercise is good for you and will make you feel better.
But lets be clear you generally have to exercise in your own time, even if the company has a gym on site.
So your 4 hours of exercise per week + changing time etc is another 6 hours out of your time.
If you have nothing else in your life don't let me stop you but if you have something else that needs doing then it must suffer and it does not matter how fit you are it will not fix what is hurting.
Make Time - Get up 1 hour earlier! you are doing 60hrs a week at work, commuting another 5 - 10hrs.
I must assume that everybody is at this moment getting just sufficient sleep after taking time for recreation, learning, family etc, etc; I never hear someone on a Monday morning at 0700 say "I could have done with less sleep" - so how can getting less sleep be beneficial? If your WLB issue is not enough family time - do they also have to get up 1 hour earlier? The latter 2 points do not address the issues of WLB and the first only serves to justify to YOU why YOU work so much.
So why do the majority of people at all levels have an issue with WLB.
I believe we need to address 4 things: Fear Understanding Choice and Kinsman ship (I challenge you to forget this acronym).
Once we have addressed these in relation to ourselves we should also consider that those who work for us have exactly the same issues.
What is good for the Goose is also good for the Gander.
We have to understand our Fears in relationship to WLB.
Sit down and think about them and the consequences.
If I don't work 60hrs my Boss will be annoyed and fire me.
If I keep working such hours my health will suffer.
If I complain about work my peers will advance ahead of me.
If I don't make more time for my wife or partner they will leave me.
I do not spend enough time with my children.
My family no longer know me.
Now work out what is most important to you like this: This Job or This Relationship? - Advancement or Early Death? - Family or Company? - Money or Life? Understand what is important to you; Understand what is important in your work; Understand what is important to your partner; Understand what is important to your children.
Understand the implications of the contrasting Fears above.
Understand which you fear the most and address it.
Make a choice and make a positive choice no matter how difficult.
Choose to talk to your boss or change your job, choose to use your time better at home, choose to work hard now so you can retire early, choose to get rid of your partner or wife - It does not matter what you choose to do, only that you do make a choice.
Without making a choice and taking action nothing will change.
Kinsmanship is about social interaction about having a kindred spirit.
Do you really know your work colleagues, your customers, in fact any of the people you interact with on a daily basis.
Do you socialize with work colleagues outside work or do you only share the moaning about how you all have too much work.
Do you know your neighbors and what they do, do you share any interests? Are you a member of a club or society, are you a member of that society with your wife or partner.
As Human's we are social animals we have an in built need to interact but the modern world has driven us into Silo's, our own protected zone where our level of interaction is increasingly by electronic means.
There is a growing issue with human interaction at work and its decline or the total lack of it.
The same is true in our personal lives.
We no longer ring our wives to say we will be home at a certain time - we text or e-mail.
We no longer write thank you notes (I mean using a pen and paper) we don't even call we just text or e-mail.
We don't need to visit extended family so that they can see the kids growing up - we can e-mail pictures every few months - You get where I am going? Getting Work Life Balance right is down to you, not the company, not some consultant, and certainly not some bu sines guru in a book.
You and you alone can recognize the problem and do something about it.
Take a serious look at your Fears, Understanding, Choices and Kinsman-ship!