Work/Life Balancing Act

The long-running business dialog about creating, finding and ensuring a work/life balance for ourselves and our colleagues has little to do with how much time is spent at home or in the office. It is more about managing our lives and doing more, not less, of what we find meaningful. The evidence can be found by looking below the surface of what appears to be proof to the contrary.

The proliferation of digital devices and the ease with which each of us is connected appears to tilt the scales toward work. In fact, though, the persistent connection actually gives us more power to connect with those we chose than it allows us to be called upon by anyone with our number. After all, just because the phone rings, beeps, sings, chimes, buzzes or vibrates doesn’t mean it has to be answered. At least not right away.

Of course, each of us has responsibilities that often trump our desire for some downtime. But as the list of those responsibilities grows (on the strength of our success and the loss of others), rather than labor longer, our new digital tools (and toys) have cut the cord that in the past required we be in the office to get anything done. Even as the advertising touts that “anyplace can be your office,” it can also be your “home.” By removing location from the work/life balance equation, we open up a host of new formulae for such equilibrium.

The role model for an ability to exert a bit more control over our own lives can be found in the digital technology that seems to threaten it. Before the digital revolution, a communication -- mostly by phone -- was built on technology that required a continuous connection. What we said to each other was carried in whole, requiring the need to listen, ponder and respond in real-time. As the work load increased, that real-time demand began to eat into the "life" part of the "work-life" equation.

Digital technology makes far more efficient use of its network by breaking what we say, type or shoot with a video cam into smaller packets and reassembling them at the other end. Now communication doesn't have to happen all at once. It can be "time-shifted" and sent to us where we ever we are rather than to the phone or monitor back at the office.

Initially, the urge is to feel overwhelmed -- nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. But, over time, it becomes clear that thinking of your own day as digital (as Frank Perdue used to say, "Parts is parts") and not analog ("You've got to listen how 'cause I'm talking now") is freeing.

I can talk to a colleague as I leave the movies; I can buy my wife a birthday gift when the popular store first opens because I am connected. I can make a sale from the weekend house; I can test drive a new car without missing a new opportunity.

By thinking of my time as mine, by assuming my responsibilities and by managing my digital devices, I can make anytime "work" or "life" time. It is possible, it seems, to have both.

Easier said than done, but worth the effort.