We all live in at least two worlds—the world at work and the world at home. It’s easy to feel that the effort we put into one world causes chaos to build up in the other. Finding that balance is one of the great challenges of modern life.
Here are five tips to meet the challenge:
1. Keep your worlds separate as much as possible. Don’t let work bleed into your home life any more than necessary, or vice versa. Be fully present wherever you are—be with your friends when with your friends, with your kids when with your kids, with your spouse when with your spouse, and at work when you’re at work.
Some of the best parents work fifty hours a week or more and are amazingly connected with their children in extremely functional ways. Some of the worst parents are stay-at-home mothers or fathers who watch television all day—know every soap opera, sleep through most of the day, and yell when their kids interrupt their otherwise unproductive lives by asking a question. In fact, there’s a little bit of this in all of us. It’s just a matter of degree.
2. Celebrate successes in both worlds. When things are busy, this is the first thing to go. That’s a big mistake. In order to support engagement and enthusiasm at work and at home, you need to create systems in both places for celebrating achievements. At work it might mean taking the team to lunch after closing the deal or finishing a complex proposal. At home it could be as simple as ice cream sundaes to celebrate everybody pitching in together to (FINALLY) clean that basement.
3. Prioritize. Not everything on your plate is of equal importance. Devote ten minutes to prioritize your tasks. And don’t think for a minute that deadlines are the only factor to consider. Yes, the project that’s due on Friday is a high priority, but so is anything that will help you meet that deadline. This includes vanquishing the chaos-creators in each world, the clutter and noise and broken systems that put a lead weight around the neck of everything you try to do.
Then there are the things that just don’t matter. Identify them and kiss them goodbye.
4. Delegate. This is the big revelation for many folks. We often look at the pile on our plates and simply reach wearily for the fork—not realizing that there are others who can help, and are sometimes willing, even eager to do so. At work, delegate what you can to coworkers. At home, it’s a matter of teaching your kids (and spouse!) to do chores. It’s crazy to let everything fall on your shoulders.
5. Accept the idea of imperfection. It’s amazing what happens when you give yourself permission to be something less than perfect. Learning to live with the occasional pile of unfinished laundry or unfiled papers is an important part of finding happiness in a 24/7 world. Sure, it can’t be piled to the point of distraction or despair. But if it comes down to a choice between tackling the pile or heading out to that celebratory lunch or ice cream sundae—leave the pile.