Career Perspectives
Finding Life Balance In A 24/7 Profession
By Susan V. Morris
Recently during a “Creating Life Balance” seminar I gave at MPI-CAC’s Women in Leadership Conference in Chicago, one meeting planner spoke up to say that she had never had a conversation with her husband
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 Susan V. Morris is Principal of The NewHeight Group, a consulting firm specializing in strategic planning and brand marketing. She spent 13 years with Marriott International in marketing and sales. She is a professional speaker and co-author of the college textbook Hospitality Sales: A Marketing Approach. For information, visit www.newheightgroup.com.
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regarding what balance meant to either of them, what personal interests she wanted to pursue, let alone how they could team up to help each other explore gaining some personal time. She relished the idea of sitting down once or twice a year with her partner to articulate what they wanted to do outside of work and family responsibilities, and finding ways to have these desires met.
It’s hard to find time or balance when you’re in the demanding, 24/7 world of meeting planning, juggling impossible time lines, tight travel schedules and endless logistical details.
How do you balance multiple roles, and personal needs and ambitions at the same time?
First, consider these workplace trends:
Who is working? In 80 percent of couples, both work, with women still bearing the brunt of responsibilities at home.
How are we working? It is estimated that 28 million people in the United States — 21 percent of the work force — telecommute. This increases flexibility but it also makes the separation of work vs. home life more difficult. In addition, 2 million home-based businesses start up each year. We are becoming more entrepreneurial, which can make it more difficult to leave work behind.
Where are we working? We work from anywhere and everywhere: home, car, office, airport, airline clubs, train, hotels, cafés — I even have a meeting planner friend who travels for six months of the year in her RV, conducting her business literally “on the road.”
When are we working? The question really should be, “When aren’t we working?” Technology has enabled us to work 24/7. This is one of the biggest issues we face — the inability to “sign off.” We have declared ourselves “victims” of technology and therefore of our employment/employer. I read recently about a six-year-old child who tried to flush her mother’s BlackBerry down the toilet, a not so subtle way of saying “pay attention to me!”
It is ironic that the very tools that give us flexibility in how we manage our work life provide challenges in our determining when enough is enough. Fortunately, we define success in life not based on how much we make but also by the quality of our life. We seek to “simplify life so we can simply live.”
Personal strategies vary depending on family situation, as well as your age and stage of life. Here is a three-step process to help you achieve work-life balance.
1. Defining Balance.
To define what balance in life means to you, consider these questions:
• Do you have a sense of physical well being? Are you exercising, eating a healthy diet, and getting enough sleep?
• Are you experiencing intellectual growth — learning new skills or expanding your mind through work or personal interests?
• Are your relationships with family and friends fresh? Are the channels of communication open?
• Are you feeding your spirit? There is a great quote by Goethe: “A person should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day in order that worldly cares not obliterate the sense of the beautiful...”
• Are you giving back to the world and your community? There is nothing like helping those in need to quickly make us realize the fortune we have in our own lives.
2. Creating Balance.
As I mentioned previously, we have the power to set boundaries, to decide when enough is enough, but instead we blame our company or our e-mail for taking over our lives.
The second largest issue I believe we face is our unwillingness to ask for help or to make our personal well-being a priority. Women are often quick to stand up for a friend or to negotiate for a client, but when it comes to our own needs, the importance seems to drop. The thought of asking husbands, partners, friends or family for help and support makes us squirm.
One of the best books I read recently was Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever (Princeton University Press, 2003). To quote the authors, “...many women don’t see these household duties as negotiable. ...So they don’t ask their partners for a more equitable distribution of work around the house. The
| It is ironic that the very tools that give us flexibility in how we manage our work life, provide challenges in our determining when enough is enough. |
result is that...their stress levels often jack up dramatically at the end of the workday as they approach their ‘second shift.’”
The importance of self-fulfillment and leisure time in daily life is growing, but how we meet the need is changing. Here are some ways to recharge and rejuvenate.
At home. Learn a new skill or renew an old interest whether it be dance or digital photography. Join a group. Whatever your interest may be, there are others who share it: book clubs, cooking classes, foreign policy discussion groups, health and wellness programs. Fifteen million people now practice yoga. It provides stress-release, a sense of peace, tranquility and calmness.
On the road. It is so easy to get wrapped up in the demands of a convention or meeting. Yet I find that whenever I take 30 to 45 minutes for myself, I reap the benefits and wonder why I don’t do it more often. Here are some of my 30-minute away-from-home recharge strategies:
Head for a book store. I keep a list of books and browse in the oasis of a Barnes & Noble or Borders to check them out. Have a great cup of coffee or play some tunes on your iPod as you browse. It transports me to another place.
Listen to new music. I have a list and head for a music store to listen to the latest tunes.
Get a manicure. It’s a lovely indulgence that gets me off my feet and feeling pampered.
Seek out a local coffee or tea house and enjoy a cup while watching the people go by. I might call a friend just to say “Hi, I’m thinking about you.”
3. Scheduling Activities Or Downtime.
I did not achieve my fitness goals until I treated my personal health as a job. I hired experts, developed a plan and scheduled my workouts as if they were business meetings with clients. Every time I removed one appointment from my calendar, I had to acknowledge what I was doing.
Block off time to read or watch a movie, purely for the joy of it, not for a sense of completion. Make it a date night with a partner or friend.
I belong to three book clubs in three different cities. Each meets once a month, and I get to whatever gathering I can, based on my travel schedule. Even if I cannot make it, these three groups of dynamic women provide me with an ongoing reading list, and we have great e-mail discussions about what we are reading and about our lives in general. This keeps my life in perspective and gives me a sense of balance.
Also, talk with your significant other about your needs and negotiate how they may be met. Scheduling them will lessen the chances of sabotage and ensure there will be no surprises.
Once you’ve negotiated to put me-time on the schedule, consider it non-negotiable. C&IT