Work life balance – Learning from attempts to finding my balance and New research findings

My personal experiences at finding my work life balance have been moderately successful and more often than not, I have been able to get it right. I share below few tips that are more suitable for beginners, rather than gurus.

Question your motives and whether you need it right now:
If your new year resolution is to get promoted and get a fat pay increase then work life balance is not going to be very easy and therefore you are better of starting on this project next year.

Make it a priority:
If you need to achieve work life balance you have it make it a priority. If work life balance ranks 8th in your list of important things in life then you are again better off starting on this project when work life balance is needed or is a priority.

Acknowledging that balance is not 50/ 50:
Acknowledging that the balance won’t be 50 /50 is the first step. A near perfect balance is impossible to achieve at first go. While you may get there at some point of time or sometimes, it would be near to impossible to have a month or a week in the 50 / 50 or near to perfect format.

Make it personal:
Think about what is right and this is always very personal. Your work life balance cannot be the same as your spouses or your friends for example. While it might be a good idea to model your work life balance strategy on people who have got it right, its wrong to assume that their format of work life balance will work for you. I say this as what is right for you can be found only by you and not by simply adopting the format of people who you think have got it right.

Communicate with people who matter:
People who matter can be your spouse / significant other / your boss / your team, etc. It’s important to set expectations so that they know what you are trying to achieve and what they can do to help you get there.

Keep a journal / scrapbook to jot down your successful days:
Writing about days that were good and what you did that day will help you reflect back when you are probably in middle of stressful period when your work life balance has gone for a toss.

When all fails, try again:
And better luck next time! :)

While on work life balance, I thought some of the new research on work life balance might be an interesting read for some of you.

(Source: 2003 research quarterly on Work/Life Balance by Nancy R. Lock wood) SHRM

Latest research 2003 study reveals that employees are often preoccupied with work when not working, and when in the company of family and loved ones, experience an inability to be meaningfully engaged in nonwork spheres.23 As researcher Ezzedeen explains, “modern work has become knowledge based, fluid, and intellectual; overworked people think about work all of the time. For many people, work has become cognitively intrusive.”

To understand work/life balance, Professor Swiercz and Doctoral Candidate Ezzedeen of The George Washington University developed and tested a cognitive approach, the “Cognitive Intrusion of Work।” In simple terms, this means that work/life balance is not just about finding “physical time” to do all that needs to be done। Instead, and more importantly, it is about the “cognitive space” necessary to process, organize, and respond to the thinking demands of life within a complex society। Ezzedeen and Swiercz found that the cognitive intrusion of work results in lower job satisfaction, less happiness, a greater incidence of work/life conflict, and more frequent burnout.


Furthermore, their findings challenge long-held assumptions about the role of personality, gender, family status and age with regard to work/life balance. They found that the experience of intrusion transcends demographics and personality and is rooted instead in the design of the job and the organizational culture of the employer. Commenting on the potential impact of this research on organization policies and practices, Professor Swiercz states, “this research not only gives employers a new benchmarking tool, it also provides a new theoretical basis for understanding this important social issue from a research perspective.