Everyone is striving to have a work-life-balance to be happier and more productive. The problem with the concept of a balance between work and life is that it is assumed that, to have a work-life-balance, all areas of life need to be in a constant equilibrium. The concept or term of work-life-integration rather than work-life-balance then arose, which involves blending both personal and professional responsibilities, rather than viewing work and personal time as separate. We’ve all seen the posts on social media where a new parent is on a video call while having an infant or toddler sitting on their lap, or where a meeting is dialed into while attending a sporting event of a child, or even working while waiting at the doctor’s office. Although all these examples (and the many others posted on social media) result in employees being connected while multitasking, the level of engagement and focus on the work at hand is shrunk.

Multitasking, as described above, may be a solution to balance work and life, and many people might brag that they are brilliant at multitasking. However, there are numerous studies that suggest and even prove that when our brain is constantly switching gears to bounce back and forth between tasks, especially when those tasks are complex and require our active attention, we become less efficient and more likely to make a mistake. Multitasking also divides our attention and makes it harder for us to give our full attention to one thing. As a result, multitasking can hinder performance and is counterproductive. As a result, although we feel and believe that as we multitask, we are making progress on many important tasks simultaneously, we are in fact setting ourselves up for failure due to the mistakes that need to be corrected in the future, as well as the late nights and weekends required in order to catchup any lost work due to being unproductive.

This topic is quite close to my heart, as I too have felt both the effects of burnout while also being able to find those zen moments of balance. After spending time reflecting on the above topics and learning and understanding what may or may not work for me, I realized that the concept of a work-life-balance or work-life-integration is flawed to a large extent. The shortfall with this term is that is suggests we need to devote a similar or equal time to work and to life. The fundamental challenge here is that ‘work’ relates only to our career and related aspects of it, in order to earn a salary and pay the bills. Life, on the other hand, relates to family, physical and mental health, friends and hobbies, as well as religion and soul. So, to be able to balance or integrate work with all aspects of life, a mindset change needs to occur for us to appreciate and realize that the work portion is a small(er) piece of the pie, so that each of the other aspects of life also get a fair share of this pie of life and living.

There is a famous speech by a previous CEO of Coca-Cola (Bryan Dyson) in 1996 where he speaks about the five balls of life, where he concludes that the ball of ‘work’ is made of rubber and will always bounce back if it falls, whereas all the other balls (family, health, friends, and spirit) are made of glass and will shatter if fallen. The problem that all of us currently have is that we treat the ‘work’ ball as the glass ball and all the other balls as rubber.

I recently took some time off work where I made a deliberate decision to ‘switch off’ completely, which included leaving my computer at home; not browsing through emails or messaging services at all, and not taking any phone calls. This was quite tough for me to do as I generally have the bad habit of being ‘available’ during my time off, which includes attending to those ‘critical’ emails and making the odd phone call. After reflecting on this as I returned to work, I noted the following key learnings:

• Being able to switch off completely takes practice and dedication;
• The work still went on without me, and proved that I am not as important as I thought I was ‘to get things done’;
• Everyone respected my time off and there were very few tasks that needed my immediate attention on my first day back;
• The first day back needed to be dedicated to attending to emails from the time I was away, in order to get back on track, which was easier than I had expected; and
• Most importantly, proactive planning was required to make sure all my deliverables were completed prior to me taking the time off in order to enjoy my time away.

The key aspect that struck me though during my time away was the amount of people who were on holiday but still connected to their work. It was not unusual to see people in their swimsuits (sitting at the poolside) with their laptops on their laps. It was also not unusual to walk past anyone who was attending to a work-related phone-call or even seeing someone at a restaurant table with headphones on attending a virtual meeting. This proved to me that unless we take ownership of our time, are able to separate work from personal time, and be honest with ourselves in concentrating on what’s important in our lives, we will never escape from the ’always connected’ mindset.

My conclusion is that even though we are all the same in wanting a good balance of work life and personal/social life, we are all unique in what that means to us, and how we will get to that perfect point of harmony and happiness. Whether that point of harmony exists, is something I still need to figure out. Until that realization occurs, I will be navigating through this maze with both caution and optimism, along with everyone else in pursuit of this goal.