When work and family collide.
Work is important. Family is important. Because they are both important, they have a tendency to collide with one another. When they collide, it’s easy to find yourself living life like a fireman – managing one fire at a time. When you do this enough, it takes away your energy and focus and eventually you’re not doing work life or family life well.
How do I know? I'm guilty way more often than I'd like to admit. I imagine many of us are.
Here's what I've found to be true more often than not: When you feel you can’t do work or family well, either consciously or subconsciously, it is usually work that moves into the priority position.
But here's a problem with this natural progression - nobody ever dies wishing they would have put more hours in at the office. Even Steve Jobs in his autobiography said if he could change one thing about his life, it would have been to be as successful at fatherhood as he was at the technology business.
Even though we might make work the priority, we intuitively know that family (in the long run) is more important. During our final hours, we will want family by our sides.
So how do we manage life when work and family collide? I believe it begins with making a choice to put first things first. If you believe your family is important, make your family important. Talk with your family about their expectations and what realistic changes can be made to improve the work-life balance.
Have the courage to talk to your employer about your desire to be a good family person as well as a good employee. Be flexible with your employer. Don’t make ultimatums. Simply express your desires, tension points, and provide some solutions. Help create opportunities for dialogue, not be an ideologue.
If you remain flexible, communicate openly and pursue what you desire, you’ll find you’re managing the collision of work life and home life much better. Your family will be happier, your employer will be happier and you’ll be happier.
What other ideas do you have in managing this tension?
Although I haven’t read it, I found a book on this topic by Andy Stanley. I’ll be picking it up and reading it to get his thoughts on this topic. What are your thoughts?