Introduction

If time and energy were infinite, we could fulfill our commitments without losing our minds. We could deliver that keynote address at our industry’s largest conference and clap the loudest at the third-grade recorder concert halfway around the world. We could give back to our community by chairing a fundraiser to end food insecurity for families without shirking the requisite late nights that lead up to closing out the month-end process. We could commit to our health and train for a marathon with impunity, even when it means blocking off meeting-free spaces in our calendars to accommodate long runs and showers.

But we are painfully aware that time and energy are finite and that there doesn’t appear to be one magic fix. In fact, the advice on juggling the components of our lives is conflicting. You can have it all. No, you can’t have it all, writes Eric Sinoway (entrepreneur and contributor to this volume). Balance your work and life. “Balance is bunk,” declares work-life integration expert (and contributor to this volume) Stewart Friedman. To honor our commitments and not collapse from exhaustion, we must find ways to integrate the many aspects of our lives. To take in the conflicting advice, try some of the recommended approaches. Adopt what works for you and abandon what doesn’t to weave your personal and professional identities into some semblance of a whole—a whole that is not frazzled or pulled in a thousand directions. Work-life balance may be bunk, but it doesn’t have to be a knockdown, drag-out competition, either.

When you accept that you can’t do it all, you can make deliberate choices about the life you want to lead. You can manage expectations. You can set boundaries. You can carve out focused time for important work. You can stop talking about self-care and actually practice it. Your priorities will become clear. This guide will help ease the tension you’re experiencing between the segments of your life by offering a variety of approaches—some grounded in research, some born of practice.

Who This Book Is For

If this book is in your hands, it’s for you. This guide is for anyone struggling to make room for all of the components that come together to create our very busy—and very rich—lives.

It’s for working parents and for those who are caring for elderly or ill family members. Whether you’re in the early days of parenting and getting yanked out of a meeting to retrieve a feverish infant from daycare or in the later days of trying to find open slots in your double-booked schedule to take your kid on college tours, this book is for you. It’s for people who want to get involved in local politics by making time to canvass or run for office. It’s for people who want to volunteer their time to serve on boards and give back to organizations that matter to them. Perhaps you’ve just entered the workforce and the nine-to-five-plus routine has you frequently cancelling on your workout partner. Maybe you’ve achieved great success at work and are at the top of your organization but annoy your family because you just can’t seem to be fully present at home. This book is for anyone who feels they may be shortchanging an area of their life that matters. Whether you know where you’re falling behind or you can’t quite figure out where you’re neglecting your obligations, this book will help you refocus and reset your priorities. It offers practices for setting and spending your time budget. It will help you assess whether a nine-to-five schedule works for you or if and how to pursue an alternative arrangement. You’ll learn how to make the most important people to you feel, well, important. And you’ll see that making time for yourself isn’t an indulgence—it’s a necessity.

How to Use This Book

Because our lives are uniquely complicated and there’s no single definition of success for work/life balance, there’s no one way to use this book. We’ve selected pieces that provide research, insights, and advice from a host of experts to give you options to sample and modify as you learn what works for you—and your commitments. We’ve organized the content into buckets that address the areas we all find challenging: time management and decision-making, our schedules, our family—and making room for taking good care of ourselves.

We encourage you to find the sections or chapters of the book that are most appropriate for you, based on what you’re currently struggling with. Jump to the section on relationships if you feel that you’re always letting down people who matter to you. Flip to the section on flexible work schedules if you want to volunteer at a local animal shelter on a regular basis. If you’re not quite sure where your balance is off, take the assessment in the first section to find out.

With your recommitment to your priorities as your guiding light, you can identify opportunities where there’s overlap. The communication skills you hone by pitching new products at work can help you speak out on behalf of a nonprofit—to raise its visibility in the community and broaden its reach. The hard-core obstacle-course race you and your colleague sign up for can do double-duty as both a team-building and a networking exercise. (And though you’ll come home with mud-soaked laundry, the experience can tick off the self-care box, too.)

Your work, self, home, and community are not separate chambers of your life that exist in isolation from each other. When you find ways to integrate the aspects of your life and the different roles you play in each, you’ll be more productive and engaged in the segments of your life—and happier.

—The Editors