Perpetual Balancing Act

This traditionally is the time for making resolutions to be followed in the coming year. I long ago gave it up myself as an exercise in futility, but I still find it a great time for reflecting on life and work. With my daughter now in college and my son only a blink behind her, what I find myself thinking about is not the prospect of being an empty-nester but, instead, whether I achieved the right balance between home and work.

A wise old boss once told me that no one ever laments on his or her deathbed, “Gee, I should have spent more time in the office.” As I count up the 50-60 hours per week I’ve spent in the office on average throughout my career, I have no doubt that I won’t either. Yet I also know that, in the interests of protecting my family time, I’ve made decisions that adversely impacted how I performed my job and even the career opportunities I’ve had. In retrospect, I realize I could have done a better job of balancing the two.

For example, when I had to travel for work (needless to say, I wouldn’t travel unless I had to), I didn’t spend an hour more than I needed on the trip and always caught the first plane back. This meant that I might arrive the morning of a meeting tired after having traveled all night when it would have been better to have come the day before, so I could be rested, and afterwards not taking the time to explore some amazing locales to which it’s unlikely I’ll ever return.

Even when I wasn’t traveling, it meant going straight home after work instead of spending time bonding with colleagues over drinks or attending evening networking events. In my pursuit of the perfect father award at home, I made sacrifices at work that, on balance, weren’t always necessary. Missing an occasional dinner with the family or taking an extra day for a business trip to do a better job might have marred my perfect attendance record at home but wouldn’t have made me a worse father. Having said that, my kids were young then, and I have no doubt that being home as much as possible then was the right priority to have.

Now, of course, I look forward to the few opportunities I have to fly somewhere because being on a plane is the only place when I have a large block of time all to myself. The inexorable march of technology, of course, will soon expose that refuge just as it has laid to waste any old notions of how long a “normal” work week should be. I find that even 60 hours is a short work week now that I take my laptop home each night to keep up with work I can’t get to at the office, and judging from the number of e-mails I receive at night and on weekends, I know that I’m not the only one who finds achieving balance between life and work a challenge.

If anyone has a story or advice to share on the eternal quest to achieve balance in life and work, please send it to me at hoytz@pacificbasin.net. It may provide the key to being able to make and keep a resolution in this New Year.

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