Mr. Flexibility :: Finding Work-Life Balance

The next generation of super-hero should include Mr. Flexibility – he is a devoted and reliable employee but has the rare talent of being able to balance the demands of his job with the needs of his family.
In all honesty, there are times when it does feel like a Dad must be a super-hero to successfully find the balance between work and family. As a Dad that has had some success (as well as some failures) with my work-life balance, I was eager to join Wendy Piersall with her group research project to explore how Dads can balance work and home life.
Flexibility Is Critical
In order to find a happy and healthy work-life balance, you are going to need a good deal of flexibility in your life – on the part of your employer, your family and yourself.
I’ve been very fortunate in that my employer recognizes the importance of work-life balance and has allowed me to be very flexible. When I first started with my current employer, I negotiated for a flexible schedule – one where I work four 10-hour days per week. This works quite well as I have a long commute to work and the longer days allow me to miss much of the rush-hour traffic.
In addition, my boss is comfortable with allowing me to work from home as needed. She has always expressed that she is willing to be flexible with her employees as long as the work gets done on time and is still at the level of quality she expects. While I don’t take advantage of this too often, the flexibility that this provides is very beneficial to my work-life balance.
Clearly some of these aspects are easier to control than others, which is why it is important to understand that you are unlikely to find the perfect work-life balance.
Define Expectations
Since it is nearly impossible to find the perfect work-life balance, you need to make an effort to define the expectations that others have of you.
If your wife and kids expect you to attend every practice, game, recital or whatever the event may be, you are going to have a hard time meeting those expectations. Likewise, you can make an effort to define the expectations that your employer may have to do your best to avoid scheduling conflicts between the demands at work and home.
As an example, my son just recently completed his summer Little League season and he had quite a few games during the week. It was important to me to attend every one of his games and I think it was equally important to him as well even if he didn’t say so.
With the schedule of games for the entire season in hand, I talked with my boss and arranged my schedule to leave a little earlier on the days my son had a game and stay a little later on days he did not have a game. There were a few games where I arrived after the game had started but he knew I was on my way. The best part was that I didn’t miss the two unassisted double plays he made – or the unforgettable smile on his face (as well as mine)!
Prepare For Exhaustion
Nobody said that finding a work-life balance was going to be easy! Depending on how many things you are trying to juggle, you should be prepared for periods of exhaustion.
For the first four months of this year, I was working a considerable amount of overtime every week as a project deadline was quickly approaching. To make matters worse, I thought that would be a good time to go ahead and start this blog while also maintaining my personal finance blog. Along with these work demands, my family was still here needing my time and attention as a Dad and husband.
This was a very difficult time for me to try and maintain any semblance of balance. Something that I found to work quite well for me was to put in my normal time at work and then come home to my family. We would have some time together each night before the kids had to go to bed that was free from work. Once everyone was in bed for the night, I would stay up late and work on my blogs or connect to my office computer and do some more work.
The advantage to this approach is that you do not take away from the time with your family but it comes with the sacrifice of your own sleep. I’m a night-owl so I thrive during the wee hours of the morning, although it was difficult to get up at 4:30am for work after only a few hours of sleep. Clearly this is not a long-term solution but there will be times where you will have to battle through to avoid losing time with your family.
Work-Life Tips To Try Right Now
Now that you have read about the importance of defining expectations, having flexibility and preparing for exhaustion, I want to provide you with a few tips that you may be able to try as you work on your own balance.

• Use your calendar at work to schedule your personal commitments. You don’t necessarily have to provide details but if you block out the time from 5:00pm to 6:30pm with a meeting (e.g. your son’s ballgame), your co-workers will see you are booked when they try to schedule a late meeting. If the meeting is truly critical, they will likely ask if you can adjust your other meeting. But to be honest with you, I’ve attended enough meetings to know that not many of them are all that critical. 🙂
• Talk to your boss about your concerns regarding your work-life balance. As I mentioned earlier, I am very fortunate to have an employer and boss that are quite flexible with my schedule and I understand that is not feasible for everyone. However, sometimes you do not know that you may have the flexibility until you have asked for it. When I started with my current employer, they didn’t offer me the flexible schedule – I had to request it.
• Spend time with your wife and kids every day. Sometimes it is not possible to be with them physically so give them a phone call when that happens. They’ll know that you are thinking about them and they are important enough for you to take a few minutes to talk to them. One of my personal goals is to always make it home in time to wrestle around with the kids a little bit and talk to them about their day before I read them their bedtime story. There are days that cannot happen but I give them a call to ask about their day and tell them I miss them and will give them a kiss when I get home.
• Mistakes are acceptable. As you struggle to find your own work-life balance, it is important to remember that you will make mistakes and there is nothing wrong with that. Referring back to my hectic schedule earlier this year, I made the mistake of expecting my wife to take care of everything at home. My wife approached me with her concerns and I realized that I needed to make an effort to be a better husband – and we are both happier since I made (and have been working on resolving) this mistake.

Find Your Balance
While I’ve only scratched the surface of what it requires to find your own work-life balance, I hope you are able to use some of this information for the benefit of yourself and your family.
It can be difficult as a Dad in the workplace to put your family ahead of work. You may face ridicule or questioning from your peers or you may have to fight even harder for that promotion. Along the way you are likely to make a few mistakes as well.
Unfortunately many Dads, including myself, make most of the mistakes on the life side of the work-life balance as the thought is that your job is too important to risk. As a Dad, try not to lose sight of the fact that mistakes on the life side can cause a considerable amount of hurt as well and that is definitely too important to risk.