Stopping by for a cup of Coffee with self

Work Life Balance is too high a valuable thing to hand it over to my boss.

Ha ha ... couldn't agree more with Nigel Marsh, the author of "Fat, Forty and Fired" and "Overworked and Underlaid” at a TED Talk in Sydney - Work-life balance is too important to be left in the hands of your employer!!!

Come to think of it  ... what is life today for a normal corporate executive. Its something like: Get up in the morning with sleep half caught up with the previous night because you were working on a presentation for the next day morning ... alarm button pressed back twice and finally pushing the body out of the bed with the Boss coming in your dreams screaming his head out, glance through the newspaper in the bathroom with the toothbrush inside the mouth, take a quick shower, get ready, gulp down some slices of bread and butter, pack up laptop, rush to the car, then struggle with the traffic on the indian road in particular, reach office, straight to the cabin to check messages on mails and answering machines, no time for any morning greetings to friends and colleagues, work work work, be the last few ones to leave office, come out to see the stars and the moon no luck for the day light, put the car on back gear to home, again struggle traffic for 2 hours on road, by the time you reach home its 10 pm, no time left for any evening walk / jog, listen to the news headlines while grabbing a quick dinner, before you realise you are snoring and the routine continues the next morning.

fffuuueeewww ... Is this Life ???

Can there be a more miserable degree of existence than this ?

Well this is how life is with most of us. I was no different till two years back when I realised ... "enough is enough" and I put a full stop to my maddening "Rush Rush" Life. Any professional out there would agree when I say that clichéd oft quoted one liner- it’s a ‘Rat Race’ out there..and in the end you now that you a rat!!

My hectic schedule- an unplanned and unnecessarily overly loaded lifestyle kept me away from so many things which i always love to do but just couldn't do and put on the excuse of TIME. No wonder my happiness index had fallen to zero and my life had become so dull with no matter how much money my bank account reflected. Every 1^st of the month definitely gave me the financial security and happiness. But trust me the lasting was never more than the first few minutes or may be few seconds.

While I advocate the concept so much I know myself that Work-life balance is a thing much easier said than done. It can feel virtually impossible in today’s highly competitive and globally connected world, given that we all have greater access to our jobs around the clock.  Its definitely not easy. 

Work Life Balance - The work-leisure dichotomy was invented in the mid 1800s. The expression "Work–life balance" was first used in the UK in the late 1970s to describe the balance between an individual's work and personal life and was first used in 1986 the US. There after took no time to spread across globe.


Ironically, today it has become a fashion to say "I don't have time" or "I am busy". As mentioned in the book - Rework - "Our culture celebrates the idea of the workaholic. We hear about people burning the midnight oil. They pull all- nighters and sleep at the office. It’s considered a badge of honor to kill yourself over a project. No amount of work is too much work. Not only is this workaholism unnecessary, it’s stupid. Working more doesn’t mean you care more or get more done. It just means you work more."

Infact, to analyse, there are many reasons for this sad situation today:

•     Globalization: As per a recent study for the Center for Work-Life Policy, 1.7 million people consider their jobs and their work hours excessive because of globalization (Ref: Wikipedia).
•    Technology: While the advancement has brought some fantastic result, today with the technological advancement I see it as a bigger challenge. A Blackberry can never allow you to have a holiday … coz  your boss and work goes along everywhere you go … ha ha J

If life continues this way it can be causing terrible damages to the quality of life and seriously suicidal.  According to a study, top corporate executives are leaving their current positions because they feel that their work pressures are "self-inflicted", they state that it is taking a toll on them and the overstretched work hours and stress is affecting their health, interpersonal and family relationships. 

Medical science says work-life disbalance is the cause of the stress and health problems world wide and hence the recommendation of so many recreational, extracurricular activities and other facilities suggested at workplace for employees. Management experts like Steven Covey, in his Seven Habits, talks about the concept of 'Multitasking' as a work style of the new generation in which they end up with a huge list of things that fracture their attention as per Covey. He further says that - "This isn't wrong in any way—for the most part it's admirable—but there is an old saying: to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a chronic multitasker, everything is a task. Soon, the things in life that are really important to them are in the same list as everything else, and the only tasks that gets done are the ones that have become urgent, but often aren't very important" and hence explains the importance of setting priorities in life and talks about his famous “Big Rocks” formula for work-life balance. Further to add a little more to this our spiritual gurus have always advocated a balanced life. Jaggi Vasudev in an interview with Infosys Chairman KV Kamath said: "You need to approach work like it is pleasure, perhaps a love affair. Otherwise you won't enjoy it"  Sharing thoughts on "Work" and "Life" and Work Life Balance, Sr Sri says with a laugh : How do you balance on a bicycle? There is no “how” You just do it. 

Fortunately enough, today many companies are realizing the importance of work-life balance as a major factor for contributing towards increased employee productivity and performance. But its very important to understand that Organisations or Institutions are not going to solve this issue for us. At the end of the day it boils down to the one and only - "YOU" because it is YOUR work and YOUR life.

My take on the whole concept is Life is a collection of a lot of things together and work is just a smart of it. While "Work" is a very important element to make one's life worthwhile, if not defined with the right quantity and balance it can be dangerous. The first step towards this is realizing the situation you are in and making a practical assessment of it, make your priority list, setting your priorities right and start being responsible for the boundaries that you want to set in your life for every activity and taking control for the type of life that you want to lead and live. 

Today I consciously work for only 6 hours a day, identifying my needs better and setting my priorities right.  Rest of the day is devoted to THE other important elements of my life- working towards by my wish list, my 10 things to do before I die  list J . Mind you, this was not easy at all … it took good time and effort. I had to really sit back and think and spend time with myself. This helped me gain a lot of clarity in my mind for the kind of life I always wanted and hence was my decision on the kind of job that I decided to pick up, my finances, my expenses, my lifestyle everything changed.

To share the secret of my ability of a work life balance is – simple - “Meeting and Knowing the Real ME and understanding what is it that it really wants” :)

And you will be surprised to know the priority list which one day had a home, a car, mobile etc etc today has only moments – moments spent with my family, net surfing with my dad, shopping with my mom, coffee with friends and so on and so forth. These are the things which money could never buy for me but has made my happiness index go shoot up high.

So stop looking outside and start a bit introspecting. We all have just one life to spend and 24 hours a day. Assuming that most of us start going to office after our masters at the age of around 21/22 and work till 60/65 which means around 40-45 years has already gone … doing what … well no answer really !. Did it fly by just going and coming to my work place???

Hence, the question that is important to answer is ... "Is this the way I am going to spend my life or is there something more to it that I can do to make it more beautiful ?"

Think about it ... Time is clicking !!! :)