I think most people who are gainfully employed would agree that our lives split into three parts: home life, personal life and business life. Not only is it a challenge to balance the time we spend in each of these parts, it is even harder, in my opinion, to keep one area from bleeding into the other and affecting it adversely.
Things challenging at work? How difficult is it to keep that from your family when they ask how your day was while eating dinner together? Or a blowup fight with your spouse the night before leads to an unproductive morning or worse, week. And the one most people don't think of is that focusing too much on your work and family can leave you void of fulfilling your personal goals of working out, continuing education or investing in friendships.
I try to use the following three tips daily to help me fight the ongoing battle:
1) Leave it at the office. Easier said then done, but either before you get out of your car at home or walk in the front door, take a deep breath, scream...anything that will help your brain get the signal it's time to switch roles.
2) Plan a date with your spouse and/or family. Seems easy enough, but we all get busy and days turn to weeks, weeks to months and one day you wake up and 10 years have passed. At least once a month, make a date with your spouse, kids and family together.
3) If you're not healthy and happy personally, work and family will suffer…so don't take this one for granted. Make time for your hobbies, activities and friends. Again, you have to plan these things, they won't usually happen on their own.
Love to hear your thoughts on this topic!
Articulated well. Bravo to your three-step approach to solving the issue of neglecting those things deemed important.
With my job shifting towards Social Media forcing me to think hard and deep about my personal and business life (I tweet under my own name and support a brand twitter account), I realized that the boundaries are disappearing. Talking to customers as myself one moment on twitter and sharing my favourite punk band the next (which just happens to be called Fucked Up!), I realized it was going to be impossible to maintain this.
Which is why I've decided to remove all boundaries between every area of my life and I can tell you it is refreshing! I feel empowered, I notice I am less stressed and most importantly I am learning what is really important to me, regardless of a specific area of my life.