Balancing Work and … Work

This is the second part in a series on balance. If you missed part one (Rethinking the Idea of Work/Life Balance), you might want to skip back and read that first.

Whether you love your job or hate it, there’s a good chance that you sometimes lack balance within your work. There are various symptoms of this, like stress, disorganisation, poor cash flow, working hard without really succeeding.

I want to look at three big areas where we often lean too far to one side in our working lives. These apply not just to paid employment but also to studying and to volunteering. They are:

• Planning vs Doing
• Big Picture vs Little Details
• Today vs Tomorrow

Planning versus Doing

Most of us err on the side of doing a lot and not necessarily planning very well. If we do plan, we often create some elaborate roadmap or chart or timetable … which we promptly file and forget about, or which we implement for a few days before abandoning.

If “planning” is too cold a word for you and your work, try:

• Brainstorming
• Outlining
• Daydreaming
• Imagining
• Vision

Planning is about thinking through what you’re going to do. It involves picking a direction and charting a course. If you were setting off on a journey, you’d do some planning: you’d get a decent map, you’d take the necessary provisions, you’d decide where you were heading.

Often, though, in our working lives, we just keep moving – not necessarily forwards! – without ever sitting back to take stock.

Some of us have the opposite problem, though. (And some of us even manage to swing wildly between the two extremes – I know I do at times!) We love to make business plans, come up with awesome ideas and daydream about how we’re going to change the world. The problem is, we never actually take any action. We never do anything.

Balancing Planning and Doing

• If you’re a “doer” – schedule regular time to plan and daydream. You’ll always feel like you’re “too busy” – the truth is, the reason you’re too busy is because you don’t do this.
• if you’re a “planner” – pick one of your plans or dreams, and figure out the first few steps. Set yourself a deadline. Don’t overthink it – just  start taking action.

Big Picture versus Little Details

Another area where we tend to lose our balance is when we get caught up in the tiny details. Perhaps we’re rushing along answering emails – when what we really need to be doing today is writing a report. Maybe we’re stressing out over getting that cool new feature of our software product working correctly – and ignoring the fact that there’s some huge usability flaw. I wrote about this problem as it relates to creative work in Your Creativity Zoom Lens over on Productive Flourishing:

Getting some distance means taking some time. Put aside everything you’ve done – the web copy you’ve written, the draft you’ve completed, the wireframe of the website, whatever it is – and just leave it. Let your project rest for as long as you can bear.

It’s very easy to get bogged down in the minutia of work and to lose sight of everything else that’s going on. It doesn’t necessarily mean we’re doing the wrong things … just getting over-focused on a particular area. For instance, maybe you’re fantastic at giving information to clients when you’re working on an active project, but you completely lose track of everyone else while that projects underway.

Alternatively, you might be great at seeing the big picture – but fuzzy on the details. You’ve got an ebook written and to you it’s perfect because it covers everything you wanted it to say. Unfortunately, it’s full of spelling mistakes, the font is hard to read, and you’ve accidentally left out a section. They’re little errors but they can create a bad first impression.

Balancing Big Picture and Little Details

• If you’re a “big picture” person – don’t multitask. Focus on the one thing at hand, and get it complete. Then move on to the next step. Take enough time to get the details right.
• If you’re a “little details” person – take a moment to jot down the outcome which you’re aiming for with a particular project. Assess whether the time you’re spending on tiny details is really worth it.

Today versus Tomorrow

Another area of work where we tend to balance too far in one direction is when it comes to chasing results today verses results tomorrow (well, in a month or two).

If we focus too much on today, we end up taking on work which gives instant results – but which isn’t the best long-term strategy. Maybe we tackle a lot of urgent but fairly unimportant tasks. Maybe we accept clients who aren’t a good fit, just because they’ll pay sooner. Or we work long hours to get everything done … storing up health problems for the future. We answer all our emails, but we don’t make any progress on that presentation we’re giving next month.

If we focus too much on tomorrow, we might run into cash flow problems. Yes, that great job will pay well in six months time … but we need money in the bank next week. Or perhaps we’re engaged in a lot of speculative work, like building up a Twitter presence or revamping our company’s website – and while this might be a good long-term strategy, it’s not helping us today. We go to seminars and conferences and meetings, while our emails and voicemails build up.

Either way, our work ends up out of balance. We find ourselves getting stressed out because nothing seems to go as smoothly as it should, or because we’re working long hours without getting very good results.

Balancing Today and Tomorrow

• If you’re a “today” person – schedule some time each day or week for longer-term strategies: learning more about your field, taking a qualification, building up relationships with potential clients.
• If you’re a “tomorrow” person – get a very clear idea about your bottom line, and make sure you’re meeting that. Don’t jump on every bandwagon which comes along – ask yourself whether it’s really going to pay off for your work.

What areas of your work do you find it difficult to balance? Got any tips – or any questions? The comments are open…

Quick Note: Tomorrow (Saturday) and again next week, I’ll be sending out a special offer to those of you who’ve signed up for the Aliventures newsletter – if you’re not on the list, you might want to go sign up now. Just sayin’.