1

To Have a Happier Home Life, Treat It a Little More Like Work

by Whitney Johnson

Quick Takes

Not long ago, I spent almost three weeks on the road, doing meetings and talks in multiple countries and a couple of U.S. cities, too. I enjoyed the travel and the work, but it was with relief that I returned home. I was ready to relax.

But I didn’t find the refuge I’d hoped for. I was confronted by not only all the business matters I’d neglected while away but also the myriad tasks and errands I needed to do for my family, friends, and church congregation. Eager as I was to reengage with all of them, home didn’t feel restful. It felt busy, demanding, and a little chaotic.

I articulated my frustration in a weekly newsletter and was surprised by the response. Many people seem to find, as I do, that their life at work runs more smoothly than their life at home does.

For a house and family to operate smoothly, we need to employ many of the same tactics we use at the office: planning and scheduling, thoughtful decision making, and putting people first.

• Schedule your day to allow for surprises. When I’m on the job, I keep to a detailed schedule. Everything is accounted for, and time is incorporated to allow for unexpected surprises. I’m now trying to run my home life in the same way, so I can get everything done efficiently and effectively and have time left over to create meaningful experiences with my family and rejuvenate myself. I haven’t yet mastered it (I have an assistant who helps me stay organized at work!), but that doesn’t mean I can’t try.
• Gather input. When I need to make a big decision at work, I consult with my team. The final call might be mine, but I want to hear everyone’s considered opinions first. At home, it’s historically been so much easier to just decide, sometimes consulting with my family, sometimes not. This is changing, though. We’re currently in the process of moving, and, rather than managing by fiat, something that would never happen at the office, we are consciously taking all views into account. Our kids are 18 and 22, which helps. But, as I’ve discovered at work, the most junior people (or children) often provide valuable, even crucial, input.
• Identify and develop strengths. In my professional life, I also think carefully about developing the people on my team—about where they are on their learning curve, how they add value, and what they can do to apply and hone their skills. We recently administered the Clifton Strengths Finder throughout the organization to identify strengths so that we can play to them. Of course, most parents are constantly working to help their children grow into successful adults. But we can be even more deliberate about it. Over the holidays, each member of our family also took the strengths test. We then read the results aloud and discussed how we might help one another better leverage those assets.
• Treat everyone as important. Perhaps the most important thing I do as a boss and business owner is try to treat every person with whom I work as the most important person in the world. I want to apply this ideal at home as well. At work, I wouldn’t dream of not turning toward the person I’m talking to and giving them my full attention, whether client or coworker. And yet, too many times to count, I idly check my phone while my husband or children are speaking. With a little prodding from our high-school-senior daughter, I’ve started to focus more on face time (and not the Apple variety). When we spend more time chatting like this, it leaves me not depleted but invigorated—feeling better connected to the people who matter most to me.

When you’re a parent with a full-time job, much of the work of home is compressed into a few hours a day, the same hours in which you’d like to relax. But we can’t feel entitled to the latter. Entitlement, which I have called the sneaky saboteur of our career aspirations, doesn’t serve us well at home, either. It takes planning and effort to make a household and family run smoothly. If I want to chill out, I have to earn it.

Adapted from content posted on hbr.org, February 21, 2019 (product #H04T70).