Work and Life Rhythm: Is Yours Off?
Work life rhythm is as vital to our business and personal life as rhythm is to music.
Anyone who knows me, knows I love to sing. I just can’t help myself. Don’t believe me? Here is a sample of an old song that I fell in love with.
If you sing you know how important the role of rhythm is in music. In this song I had one quick section where the rhythm was off. If the rhythm isn’t corrected, your music quickly turns to discordant chaos.
What about work life rhythm. Stop for a moment. Track the hours you worked last week. Your business is valuable to you. No one could question that. But, putting too much time into work creates an imbalance with your personal life. And, while you may not feel the impact right now, it will create a problem down the road.
No one wants you to stop working or even to cut back too much. But finding your work and life rhythm, where both components work together to create you a true life, can create a number of benefits to you. In fact, business owners of the most successful companies have fulfilling lives after 6 p.m. Do you?
Know the Work Life Rhythm Chaos Risks
When you bring work home with you, you create a higher work life rhythm risk level in a number of areas. This includes:
- Your health – you’re not eating right, you’re not exercising. That’s going to impact your lifespan.
- Your family – Divorce and fractured families happen because we cannot create enough of a break here. And the non-financial costs of building a wall between yourself and your family is even more expensive.
- Your friendships – Your work “friends” are truly not enough; you need to build good relationships with people outside of work, which means spending time cultivating friendships.
- Your effectiveness – You may say up until this point that none of that matters if you have your company, but the truth is, without a mental break, it is going to take a toll on your effectiveness and abilities to do your job well.
- Your Influence – Your influence among peers, employees, other business leaders, is lessened. There are various reasons for this including simply not spending enough time outside of the office to be yourself when you are there.
I recently heard Jon Gordon and he believes work-life balance is a myth. What do you think? Leave a comment below.
Creating Work Life Rhythm
You may agree with the business chaos risks, but you may not have any clue what to do to ensure you are truly able to make it all work.
A key here is to first recognize that you need boundaries. Work at home after you’ve put in nine hours? Don’t do it. Create a true schedule for yourself and stick with it. What you may find is that you can train your employees, associates, and even your boss to understand that your time outside of work is always time they cannot reach you.
Then, work to develop other habits and block in time for the good stuff. Treat every dinner with your family, every movie with some friends, and even your workout sessions as true appointments. If you would not break an appointment with your potential client, why would you do so with your child?
Work to create a work life rhythm. As a leader, you need it to keep yourself fresh, open-minded, and aware of the world around you. If you’re spending too much time focused at work and not enough time with your loved one, rebuild your schedule. Look for creative ways to get tasks completed. And, simply learn to say no when the answer really should be no.
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