Work Life Bollocks

After just coming back from a nice long break, my brain is ready for the challenge of working again.  I thought it might be fun/useful to share my thoughts on work/life bollocks -I mean balance?

It’s just that when I think of it, I have never ever got to the end of a busy week and said to myself, wow I nailed it, total and complete an utter balance!  33 1/3% time at work and 33 1/3% time at home and 33 1/3% time on health & wellbeing.  Of course, this might just be me, if you are able to achieve perfect balance in all areas of your life then you best stop reading now.

The word Balance means:

A situation in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions (Wikipedia)

I regularly think about how I allocate time in my world and whether this is truly reflecting my values or not.  If it is I keep things the same, if it is not I adjust something.

For me it is more about living a life that is integrated.  In that life, there are a myriad of things that you want to achieve.  There are workplaces to attend, kids to spend time with, relatives to cook dinner for, ourselves to keep healthy, communities to contribute to.  We do our best on a daily basis and that should be sufficient.

Every single one of those life timeslots are areas we choose to be part of, we choose what job we have, who we are in a relationship with and how many kids we have (within reason).  If we are getting to the end of a week, term, quarter, year and are burnt-out then we need to firmly stand in the mirror and give ourselves a work/life bollocks check.  We are the adults and we are empowered to make decisions in all areas of our lives.

Provided you feel as though you are basically allocating your time to the things that matter most in your world, then that is as close to life integration that you will ever get.

If you are looking in the mirror and the time is being misspent, or allocated in the wrong areas then jolly well make some changes, because you are the only one that can achieve life integration, whatever that happens to look and feel like for you!!!

Don’t expect the magic bollocks fairy to come and sit on your lap and do a special equation to make it all ok (trust me I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work). Instead, make a firm decision about your intention, then focus on your priorities for 2017.

2017 for me is very much a focus of looking at my life priorities and cherry picking to spend time doing the ones that will give me the most social, physical and business based return on investment.  I’ll regularly get it wrong but that’s ok, because I can change or adjust and make it better.

What will you do to make 2017 your best year yet?