Integrate, don’t contaminate, work-life activities

Work-life integration is the alternate execution of work and personal life activities in a manner that permits us to fully experience the quality of both.

Work-life contamination is the simultaneous execution of work and personal life activities in a manner that prevents us from fully experiencing the quality of either. This is commonly referred to as multi-tasking.

An example is: opening your mail while carrying on an important business conversation with somebody in your office. Not only is it impolite, you might miss something very important.

Resolve to integrate, not contaminate! Your life will be richer and fuller.

Learn more tips at http://www.attackyourday.com

It’s dinner time!

Those were words everybody looked forward to hearing several decades ago when life moved at a slower pace. Unfortunately, dinner time has become one of the casualties of modern society and poor time management.

Taking time to sit down together as a family can pay huge relationship dividends. Sitting down together with your partner, your child, or your friend can truly be quality time.

Why not set a goal right now for some dinner time this month? Mark it on your calendar and enjoy far more than just good food.

Work Life Balance Means Work Life Integration

The problem today is that we have more events and activities to manage in the same amount of time. This is due, in part, to technology, the Internet and expectations of doing more with less. We are wired 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, 24/7/365, with multiple demands, and hardly a chance to catch our breath. In a way, we’ve become compressors of life, trying to jam an unrealistic number of events into our daily allotment of minutes.

All of this has caused a paradigm shift. A paradigm is a patterned way of thinking. The old way of thinking had us dividing our work and personal life with an imaginary line. For most people, that simply doesn’t work anymore. For some people it never worked, simply because life was too complicated. When we separate work and personal life with an imaginary line, we set the two up in opposition to each other. That drives stress upward. We feel guilty regardless of which side of the line is getting our attention.

The new paradigm is for us to see our work and personal life as one life, with work and personal activities integrated throughout the 24-hour day.

Maybe you’re thinking that an integrated work and personal life sounds undesirable. Maybe, for you, it even sounds as final as placing the last nail in the coffin of work-life balance. After all, doesn’t work-life balance mean equally dividing time between work and personal life? No, that’s the old way of thinking.

The new way of thinking about balance is to realize it means maintaining equilibrium in a sea of change. It requires the ability to “flexicute.” Okay, so we invented a word—but, you have to agree, it is a very descriptive word and it makes sense. Flexicute means the ability to adapt to changes during the day without letting it throw you. As author James Ballard said, “We need to learn to dance while the carpet is being pulled from underneath us.”

The first step in creating easy time management is to learn the new “time management dance steps.” In other words, recognize and embrace the simple but significant differences in the new time paradigm.

Here are some old ways of operating as compared to the new ways.  Making these adjustments will help you be more comfortable with chaos.

Old way: Balance meant equal amounts of time spent on work and personal life.
New way: Balance is maintaining equilibrium in a sea of change.

Old way: Emphasis on multi-tasking.
New way: Emphasis on alternate-tasking, alternating work and personal life activities around the clock in a way in which both can be fully experienced.

Old way: Work is a marathon with long, hard hours and inadequate recovery time.
New way: Work is a series of sprints with adequate recovery time. (Source: The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz.)

Old way: Work could be caught up and finished.
New way: Work is continuously processed but seldom finished.

Old way: One time management tool provided a complete system.
New way: Multiple tools are combined to provide a complete system.

Old way: Activities were arranged primarily based upon the clock.
New way: Activities arranged primarily based upon necessity, practicality, efficiency, and spontaneity. In other words, doing activities when they make sense, rather than based on what time it is.

Old way: Performance is judged by the number of hours one puts in at the office.
New way: Performance is judged on the basis of productivity.

 Let’s emphasize again that time hasn’t changed. We still measure time by the same calendar and clock. And, time is still defined as the occurrence of events one after another. An event is anything that happens, including activities: these are the basic building blocks for designing the quality of life we desire.

Activities Rule!

In the new paradigm, the clock does not rule: activities rule! If you are looking for an easier way to manage time, it is simply to become an effective activity manager.

Let’s take a closer look at the nature of activities, as outlined in the book Tick Tock Who Broke the Clock? – Solving the Work-Life Balance Equation, coauthored by Dr. William A. Guillory and Trapper Woods.

An activity is something we do. Even sleeping is an activity. From the day we draw our first breath of life until the time we expire our last breath of life, we are executing activities on a nonstop basis. Examining activities further, we realize that activities can be:

• Physical
• Mental
• Subliminal
• Long in duration
• Short in duration

Activities Are Never Neutral!

Some activities of long duration can have very little consequence. Some activities of short duration can have huge consequences. The most important thing to recognize about activities is that they are never neutral. They either enhance or detract from our lives by changing the quality for better or for worse.

To Be a High Performer!

Hopefully you feel empowered with a better understanding of activities. The exciting thing here is that to be good at what you want to be good at—to be a high producer in today’s environment—simply be a good activity chooser. It’s easy! Poor choosers become losers when competing for promotions or getting what they want in life.

 The bottom line is this—self-management excellence is really activity management excellence.

Learn more about activity management in our book “Attack Your Day! Before It Attacks You“.