Work-Life Balance? How about Work-Life Harmony?

"Make your work part of your life, and there’s nothing wrong with that."

As someone who is experienced in the recruiting game, I believe there are two kinds of people in the workforce: People who demand work life balance and are constantly stressed over how their work is taking over their lives, and people who welcome work into their lives and allow work to be part of their lifestyle.

Can you really say "workaholics" don't have a life, when, really, their jobs are part of who they are, as much as their hobbies and interests and family and relationships?

I came across an article on written by one of my ex-clients, and it resonates so much with me that I felt the need to share it here today.

Originally posted by Jake Chen on Linkedin:

How to get work-life balance without asking for it

I hear you. Work-life balance. We all want that. A good balance of different parts in life makes us whole. But ask for it the wrong way, and you risk sounding like a whining child not wanting to accept your adult responsibilities.

So how can you get work-life balance, without asking for it?

1. Stop the balancing act
Even as a topic that consistently tops the charts in employee happiness surveys, talent attraction laws, work motivators and the likes, I think work-life balance is a little old-fashioned. This is a connotation that work is bad and life is good; that work begins in the morning and ends in the evening, where life takes over.

I’d like to think of it as work-life harmony, and to bring the two together means you will have to start connecting the dots. We want to enjoy life because it is meant to be interesting, adventurous, and meaningful. So go get yourself a job that gives you the same satisfaction you'd derive from life. If you love adventure, an outdoors job may suit you better than an indoors one. Do things you're passionate about, that itself will give meaning to your job, and remember that being great doesn't happen only in the day.

Or choose to play to your strengths and weaknesses. Some people choose jobs that they’re naturally good at. This raises their self-esteem. Have you ever had that one relative or friend, who just can’t stop talking about their jobs with brimming enthusiasm? Others go down the route of selecting jobs which stretches them and forces them out of their comfort zones. And that becomes a personal challenge in which they strive to grow every day. Make your work part of your life, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

2. Stay focused
There are so many aspects of life that we need to manage, and there will be times we get thrown off track. When things get messy, work becomes the convenient scapegoat. It becomes easy for us to blame work for sucking the life out of us.

One way of staying focused is to think about one thing at a time. Sounds much simpler than it actually is. The dynamism and unpredictability of today’s environment makes it hard for us to do that. We are constantly prioritizing, re-prioritizing, and over prioritizing. Stop thinking and start doing! It is liberating when you start to pick up pace, and the more you do, the shorter the list becomes, and the clearer your mind is.

3. Set a performance driven culture
In raw form, this means I don't care how much time or effort you spend, I just want the job done. Employers love performance driven cultures because they want results, period. So much so that companies have offered solutions like working from home, flexible hours, unlimited vacation (provided you deliver), no-KPI structure, you have seen it all happened.

To the employee, this is simple math. If you wanted more time for personal pursuits, make sure you work twice as hard - in half the time. Take ownership of your goals and prove that you will do whatever it takes to deliver results, on time. Better yet, ahead of time.

It's an all-win situation when this culture starts to create a workforce that is primed for results rather than one which exists to chalk up hours. So if you haven’t, start drawing up your work targets according to what you want to achieve, not what you need to do.

4. Build relationships
You are not perfect. You are not the best in everything. You do not know it all.

Having friends and networks that you can rely on is critical to your effectiveness at work. Organizational goals today are contemporary and complex, read: it cannot be achieved through solo effort. You will often need someone else’s skill, knowledge, or expertise to push your agenda. This will call upon your ability to inspire and motivate people to run according to your pace. Remember, you are trying to get to your objective as quickly as possible so that you can have more work-life balance.

Start building relationships. This should be one of the very first things you do in the workplace. Building relationships do not start and end with a handshake. It is about showing appreciation, encouraging one another, making yourself available for others first, being interested, being genuinely involved and treat others’ problems as though they were your own. People do not care how much you know, until they know how much you care.

5. Work for Google
If all else fails and you can’t find work life balance, work for Google. It’s in their job description. No, it's their way of life.

Do you have work-life balance? To me, there's no such thing. I have work-life harmony.

Have a great weekend ahead! =D 

How to be Happy During the Weekends

You may be asking, why am I writing about something that people already automatically feel happy about? It's a no brainer that by default, people will be happy during the weekends. Why the need to write about it?

Do you feel exhausted on Sunday evenings? Do you feel like your whole weekend was wasted sleeping in late and not doing much? Then you're not using your weekends wisely, and your weekends are probably not as happy as they could be.

Here are some simple steps that may be hard to follow, but do them well, and you'll find that your Mondays will suddenly not seem that blue anymore.

1) First things first, what to do: Spend your weekend doing 'pointless' things that aren't pointless.

There's a quote on my WhatsApp status that I have been using for years, and I still somewhat live by it:

It is meant to be satire, but isn't that the basis of most people's opinions about weekends? 

About two months ago, I bought a book titled What the Most Successful People do on the Weekend by Laura Vanderkam. It was a short read - and needless to say, most points were already things we know - but it reminded me yet again how important the weekends (or rather, our days off) are, and how we can really get down to enjoying them. 

To me, living a completely pointless weekend is not about doing things that are completely pointless - its about doing 'pointless' things that gives us satisfaction. 

Take for example: Tom spends his weekend at home watching dramas. Dick spends his weekend playing online video games. Harry spends his weekend going rock climbing. 

All three of them did 'pointless' things; none of those things could have in anyway added value to them, at least not economically. However, come Monday, who do you think felt more refreshed? Tom and Dick, who spent no effort at all planning their weekends? Or Harry, who spent the effort planning for the rock climbing trip (booking the rock climbing studio, preparing the equipment, driving out) and then enjoying the process of it?

As for me, my weekend pointless activities include: Sewing, reading, and binging on dramas (oops, I guess some bad habits are hard to die). 

2) Earn more time by getting out of bed early.

Ideally, you might want to try getting out of bed about the same time you do on weekdays, but unless you are super disciplined, you and I both know that's close to impossible to happen. Still, many of us have the habit of sleeping in till like, noon, because "IT'S THE WEEKEND!".

Try waking up earlier than your usual weekend (and don't snooze!), say, 9am, and go for a nice breakfast (or maybe even cook your own!) before you start your day. You'll suddenly find that you have more time on your hands, which translates to a longer weekend, and you'll wonder why you ever done this sooner. 

3) Now that you've got more time on your hands, it's time to plan your weekend ahead.

It's easy to not plan. How often have we told ourselves: "It's the weekend, let it happen. When the time comes, I'll just do what I want to do when I want to do it," but when the end of the weekend comes, we never actually got around to doing anything?

Part of the joy is from anticipation. When you plan a weekend event, you start to anticipate it. It will make your work week more meaningful, as you know you are looking forward to something at the weekend. When it finally comes, the satisfaction is great.

I'm not saying you should plan every single piece of your time of your entire weekend, but make a rough guide. For me, I usually choose two things to do per day: Two activities on Saturday, and two activities on Sunday. That way I get to still do other stuff in between, and even if I don't manage to do all activities (say, I only managed to do two out of the four activities planned), I still feel happy and fulfilled. 

4) Stick to your plan.

I'll admit that sometimes I tend to fall into the temptation of doing away with the plan and resort to lazing around at home. Why would I want to make the effort getting dressed and taking the time to travel out to do whatever it was I had planned, when I could easily spend my weekend napping and watching drama sitcoms? When times like this do happen (and it will), ask yourself, when Sunday evening looms around the corner, would you want to look back on your weekend and tell yourself "Ah... I'm exhausted but boy, did I enjoy myself this weekend!" or will you say "Man, all I did was mope around sleeping and scrolling through Facebook"?

5) The dreaded Sunday evening!

I used to dread Sunday evenings, especially when I felt like I haven't done anything all weekend and it's just gone. I would feel lousy and would start binge watching dramas till late at night, and guess what? It just made me feel worse on Monday morning. 

There isn't a secret formula of what to do and what not to do on a Sunday evening, but generally you want to relax and unwind. Take your mind off work!! Think back to how you spent your weekends, and the highlights of it. Enjoy a nice dinner to finish off the awesome weekend you had, and maybe do something relaxing and mindless like reading a book or even doing the laundry. 

Tell yourself that it was a great rejuvenating weekend and now you're refreshed and ready to face Monday again, because you're just that awesome. 

FAQ

Q: What if I really feel like having a lazy weekend? What if I actually wanted to spend my weekend sleeping in, binging on dramas in my sweatpants, and eating delivery pizzas? 

A: Well, isn't that a plan! If you feel like you need a break from those "fruitful weekends", do it! Just be sure not to fall into the same routine every single weekend, and then you'll be stuck in the same rut and going back to feeling lousy on Sunday nights and Monday mornings. 

Q: Seems like the weekend is dedicated to putting in the "life" in "work-life balance". What if I have to work on weekends? Some of us bring our work laptops home because we have work/projects to attend to and deadlines to meet. 

A: Plan for it! Just as how you would plan your weekend activities, make your work one of them. Plan a time for it, then when the time comes, sit down and focus on it. Don't procrastinate, don't put it off. Once you're done, you'll be off to your next activity and you would have already offloaded work off your chest. You'll tell yourself "Phew, I've done it and my work is done for the weekend!" Best part of planning work into your weekend is, you get your work done and you won't have work bugging you in the back of your head for the entire week. 

Q: Help, I tried planning my weekends but I never had the discipline to follow through! I'm now spending my weekend feeling miserable and lousy. 

A: Don't be too hard on yourself, everyone fails once in a while. Don't stress yourself and don't blame yourself for it, or you'll just be spending your weekend moping around in self-loathe. Just take it easy and try again next weekend. 

Q: I've got a question and it's not listed here. 

A: This isn't a guide book. The weekend is your own to spend, just remember to make it count.