You’ve decided what you want your holiday work+life fit (or work/life balance) to look like — what activities you’d like to try to participate in, what days you’d like to try to take off, etc. Now, it’s time to figure out in advance how you are going to manage technology to help you achieve your holiday work+life fit goals in the least stressful, most enjoyable way.

Truth: Technology can be your best work+life fit friend. Unfortunate Reality: Instead of managing technology, technology manages you! And the result is a seemingly unending connection between work and your holiday celebrations.

Okay, so what can you do to avoid having technology become the Grinch that Stole Your Christmas (or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa) this year? Here are a couple of suggestions: Continue Reading…

Oh, no! I continue to pray that dads resist the rabbit hole of “daddy wars” that have distracted moms from real work+life issues for too many years. My desire to get all of us–men and women in all stages of life–to focus on the real issues prompted me to start writing my book seven years ago. I wrote about the limited ability of companies to “solve” this problem for us, and about how individuals need to play a larger role in setting boundaries around work and life, given our circumstances in the new 24/7 work reality.

Yet, Brian Reid in his Rebeldad blog for Washingtonpost.com has asked his readers to define “daddy wars” saying: Continue Reading…

Because of the response I received to the posting about my personal struggle not work during July vacation, I decided to analyze recent research findings and commentary related to the vacation+work quandary to see if I could find common themes and solutions. And, as I suspected, in many ways, we are indeed our own worst enemy when it comes to vacation, or the lack thereof. What can we do about it? Plenty…we need to:

• Realize there are two separate issues—people who don’t take vacation and people who work while on vacation
• Change your definition of success that keeps you from taking vacation
• Challenge fears about taking vacation—are they real?
• Consciously determine how much work you will do before starting vacation
• Manage technology, don’t let it manage you
• Realize your company and the government can only do so much Continue Reading…

We are entering prime vacation season.  The time of year when people ask me, “Should I answer my email and check my voicemail during vacation?”

Ah, remember the good old days when you could only “check in” during vacation by picking up the phone and actually talking to another human being.  So, for the most part, you didn’t do it.

Now, with the click of a mouse and a voicemail password, you can anonymously stay “connected” with the greatest of ease.  And, for some people, that’s the problem.  Clearly many of us still struggle with boundaries between work and vacation. This includes me.  Continue Reading…

Tom’s Story

I met Tom last night when I spoke to a group of accountants who had been with their firm less than four years. Tom was one of the leaders in charge of these new hires, and his presence confirmed his value to the firm. Only the most high-potential leaders are usually invited to attend these events.

He asked what my speech was about. I told him I would show the group how each employee could begin to strategically partner with the firm to manage their unique work+life “fit” throughout the transitions in their life and career. “That’s great,” he said, “because it’s a struggle for all of us including me.” And with that he opened his laptop and asked, “Want to see my son?” Tom showed me pictures of his adorable child. “That’s my boy,” he said with a huge smile on his face. Then he got serious. “You know, it’s so hard to find time with him, and to be a help to my wife who is home full-time but still needs support. When I get home most nights at 9:00 p.m., I’m not seeing my son at all, and my wife is going to bed because she’s so exhausted. I’m glad to see you’re here because I wonder sometimes if there’s a place for me at this firm because my family is so important to me.” “Oh no,” I thought to myself, “not again.”

Continue Reading…

This past week I spoke on a terrific panel at the Executives Moms Spring Luncheon in New York City (www.executivemoms.com). The title of the discussion was “Over FULFILLED…(Or Never Quite)? What Lies Beneath the Complicated, Driven, Rewarding Life of an Executive Mom?”

The panel was moderated by Good Morning America’s weekend host, Kate Snow, who is the mom of two children under 3 years old. Joining me as a panelist was Barbara K (http://www.barbarak.com), a mother of one son, who sells the well-known barbarak brand of tools for women and will be appearing on her own home improvement show on the E! Network. And Lisa McCloud, the author of Forget Perfect: For Every Woman Who Has Ever Put Herself Last on Her Own Priority List, who is the mother of two daughters (www.forgetperfect.com). Continue Reading…

British Conservative Party Leader David Cameron, the 39 year old top contender to replace Tony Blair in the UK’s upcoming elections, caused a stir this week. In a controversial speech at the Google Zeitgeist Europe 2006 Conference in England, he laid out “work/life” as a key focus of his party’s political agenda. (Full transcript of the speech).

His speech was remarkable for the mere fact that it happened. But also because it was delivered by the leader of the country’s pro-business party. When the right-of-center candidate says “Improving our society’s sense of well-being is, I believe, the central political challenge of out times,” it’s clear that governmental leaders are beginning to see the need for new models for managing work and the rest of life. Cameron believes that for individuals and nations to thrive in the 21st Century, “Our goal is clear: to move beyond a belief in the Protestant work ethic alone to a modern vision of ethical work.” Continue Reading…

The work+life topic in the media this week is the downside of the 24/7 work reality (WSJ- 3/25/06, New York Times-3/26/06, NBC Nightly News). Most of these stories focused on longer hours, specifically people getting to work earlier. While I can see where this might be a negative development for some people, my first reaction was, “This is great!” I love getting up early. My optimal work day would start at 6:30 a.m., and end around 4:00 p.m. In fact, most mornings I’m at the gym by 5:45 a.m. But by 8:00 p.m., I’m worthless (I am notorious for falling asleep in even the noisiest places if I’m out too late).

There are a lot of early birds out there—catch us at 6:00 a.m., we’re on fire. But after 5:00 p.m., prop us up in a corner so we’re out of the way. There are an equal number of people on the other end of the spectrum—the night owls. These folks don’t begin to function before noon, and are at their most creative after 9:00 p.m. And, of course, there are endless variations in between. Continue Reading…

The story in Lisa Belkin’s Life’s Work column in Sunday’s New York Times about the late Eugene O’Kelly, chairman of KPMG hit a nerve with me. During my vacation, I struggled to honor my pledge not to work at all. That experience forced me to revisit the question that I come back to often: How much of our work+life fit conflict is our own doing? In other words, are we often our own worst enemy when it comes to setting (or rather not setting) boundaries around our work and life? It’s an important question if we hope to effectively combine work and life in the 21st century. Because the answer will require more actively managing the expectations and pressures we put on ourselves everyday.

Mr. O’Kelly’s story in Lisa Belkin’s column exemplifies perfectly how a company can do everything to help employees achieve “balance,” but unless an individual’s personal definition of success and expectations change, it will have no effect. Perhaps, until it’s too late. She talks about Mr. O’Kelly’s book called, Chasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life published after his death. He was the chairman and chief executive of KPMG, one of the country’s largest accounting firms, when he learned last May that he had an inoperable brain tumor. Continue Reading…

Over the past week, there was a flurry of articles about the pending Blackberry shutdown (USA Today 2/3/06; Money 2/1/06). Many focused on the panic high-level individuals in business and government are experiencing as they face the possibility of not being connected to work at all times. (There was even a related article in the Wall Street Journal about Type-A bathrooms–bathrooms outfitted with technology to receive calls, emails, etc).

Running through the individual stories in these articles was a work+life “fit” undertone, even though most of the interviewees were men in very demanding, senior level jobs—lawyers, CEOs, PR Executives, Record Executives. (This is a perfect example of how the term “fit” includes everyone in the same work life conversation, even those who have chosen to devote most of their time and energy to work). These men talked about how their Blackberry was a double-edged sword, waking them up at night, catching them in the bathroom, or on the field at a daughter’s soccer game. But, it also allowed them to be in their own bed or at home, or at their daughter’s game, instead of at the office. Continue Reading…