No more “back to work”
And no more holidays
I went “back to work” today after a two week break following the birth of our second child, Finn. The ability to take time off to focus on family is something I’m very grateful to be able to do. And I’m very fortunate to work for an employer who gives me two weeks paternity leave on full pay. But what it also made me realise is that applying a constrained and narrow focus over large periods of time doesn’t suit me.
You’d better not be doing any work. You’re on holiday.
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve spent a lot of time with our three year old son — Max (pictured above) — so that he doesn’t feel put out and so my wife can spend the time required looking after our newest family member. But, from time to time I dipped into “work” activities and had to try hard in order to stop myself from replying to emails that should wait until I get “back to work”. I even kicked off a few conversations that have resulted in additional “work” opportunities and played about with a couple of side projects. I felt guilty about this. But I really shouldn’t.
Today I took Dexter — our awesome family dog — out for a long two hour walk when I should in fact have been “working”. But the truth is that after going through a large number of emails this morning I wasn’t in the right state of mind to get on with anything else. It worked wonders, cleared my head and gave me a mental kick-start.
Back in January 2011 I wrote a long retrospective about my 2010 with a focus on Work Life Integration. Although my job allows me to have some flexibility I think I’ve lost my way when it comes to understanding how I live and work best, because I’ve been working a rather regimented set of core hours of 9:30am to 6:30pm and then doing additional work when I’m “in the zone” or when deliverables are imminent.
But Work Life Balance seems to suit the traditional 9 to 6 best. It assumes that you can — and want to — turn off when you clock off. I believe that self awareness is important which leads me to believe that Work Life Balance isn’t for me. And it would seem I’m not the only one. Just search for “Work Life Integration” and you’ll find a number of high profile articles on the subject. One of the resources that resonates with me is this slide from a Netflix presentation.
Balance is unrealistic, too many inputs
Integration is much more achievable and reduces stress
Cloud + mobility enables integration
What I want to do now is define times during which I do still have a 100% family or work focus. For example, family activities and pre-arranged meetings (like the stand-ups the BladeRunnerJS team have every morning at 10am). But outside of those times I’m going to give myself the flexibility to explore and define the Work Life Integration pattern that suits me best and ensures I deliver the best results for me and those I work with and for.
So, no more “back to work” and no more holidays. Instead I’ll have periods where the general focus is work or family, but these things aren’t mutually exclusive.
