1311: The Truth About Work Life Balance and How To Get It by Sarah Von Bargen of Yes and Yes on Work Productivity

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Work Daily Episode 1311, The Truth About Work-Life Balance and How to Get It,

[00:00:06] by Sarah von Bargen of YesAndYes.org. And I am your narrator Dan and I appreciate you joining

[00:00:12] me today and we're going to get right to it now as we hear from Sarah in Optimize Your Life,

[00:00:21] The Truth About Work-Life Balance and How to Get It, by Sarah von Bargen of YesAndYes.org.

[00:00:27] When you hear the phrase work-life balance, do you a. want to reach through the computer and

[00:00:33] strangle me for referencing lifestyle blog and self-development cliches?

[00:00:38] b. imagine an Instagram photo of a thin blonde woman doing yoga on the beach?

[00:00:43] c. think what is this mythical balance you speak of? or d. all of these? Me too. Very few of us

[00:00:51] have lives that are perfectly divided into work and play. Maybe you work 60 hours a week and

[00:00:56] never see your partner. Maybe you've got an amazing social life but you're working a dead-end

[00:01:00] job. Maybe you're in perfect shape but you spend so much time training for marathons you never

[00:01:05] see your non-running friends. Work-life balance isn't necessarily easy and honestly, it's not

[00:01:11] for everyone. But if you'd like a bit more play than work or a bit more work than play,

[00:01:16] listen on for four epiphanies that have helped me find more balance in my life.

[00:01:21] 1. Work-life balance means that most things in our lives progress more slowly.

[00:01:26] Well, that's a bit depressing, isn't it? Dudes, it's true. We all have limited amounts of time,

[00:01:32] money and energy. Let's imagine that we begin every day with 10 units of energy.

[00:01:37] We can choose to put 9 of those units into our professional lives and 1 unit into our

[00:01:41] relationships. Or we can put 7 units into marathon training and 3 units into college

[00:01:47] classes. Or we can put 4 units into Netflix, 4 units into cat cuddling and 2 units into pizza

[00:01:53] rolls. AKA my November weekends. What we can't do is pull more time and energy out of the clear

[00:02:00] blue sky and or tiny bottles of 5 hour energy. I've tried. Sad to report it doesn't work.

[00:02:06] So it follows that if we want to attain that fabled work-life balance,

[00:02:10] we need to spread our energy and time between, you guessed it, our work and life. And when we

[00:02:16] do that, two things happen. A. We probably feel more relaxed, more centered and more like ourselves.

[00:02:23] And B. We don't advance quite as quickly as our friends who've allocated their time and energy

[00:02:28] differently. Let's say you enroll in an MBA program and attend classes full-time. You

[00:02:33] spend 60 hours a week on classwork, live on a teeny tiny budget and see your friends once

[00:02:38] a month. In 2 years you'll be ready for the workforce with a freshly printed diploma under

[00:02:43] your arm. You might be burned out and exhausted. You might be exhilarated and proud of all your

[00:02:48] hard work. You might be both. Or you might enroll in an evening or weekend MBA program.

[00:02:53] You take a couple classes each semester, making time for them between dinner parties,

[00:02:57] vacations and your current job. Because you're taking fewer classes, you have time to really

[00:03:02] enjoy them. By the time you are completely finished, you've spent 4 and a half years

[00:03:06] earning this degree. But you didn't hate your life while you did it. This applies to just

[00:03:10] about everything. When you throw yourself headlong into any pursuit, personal or professional,

[00:03:15] you're likely to achieve that goal faster, occasionally at the expense of other parts of

[00:03:19] your life. Earning a degree, training for a marathon, paying off debt, getting a promotion,

[00:03:25] buying a home or launching your freelance career. You'll accomplish things faster if

[00:03:29] you put other aspects of your life on the back burner. But that requires you to put other

[00:03:34] aspects of your life on the back burner. Don't want to put things on the back burner? That's

[00:03:38] OK. If we really want work-life balance, we need to make peace with reaching our goals a bit more

[00:03:44] slowly. 2. Sometimes we have to work really hard now to have work-life balance later.

[00:03:50] A bit of real talk. I spent 2009 to 2011 working two jobs and posting seven days a

[00:03:57] week on Yes and Yes. I'd spend each of my 45 minute lunch breaks commenting on other blogs

[00:04:02] and at least one day every weekend writing blog posts. It was not a particularly balanced

[00:04:07] life, but those long hours and that very unbalanced life made my current life possible.

[00:04:13] These days I work between 30 and 40 hours a week and travel whenever I want to. I can meet

[00:04:18] friends for lunch, take my steps onto a matinee or blow off work because it happens to be

[00:04:22] gorgeous outside. This probably wouldn't be possible if I hadn't worked those crazy hours

[00:04:27] five years ago. Maybe your balanced future means you need an unbalanced present. Maybe

[00:04:33] it means working really hard to move somewhere with a low cost of living so you can earn and

[00:04:37] work less. Maybe it's training for a career that has flexible hours. Maybe it's spending

[00:04:42] all your free time looking for a job that allows you to work from home. 3. Work-life balance

[00:04:49] is easier if we get really clear on what makes us happy and where our money is going.

[00:04:54] Very few of us work for the sheer fun of it. Even those of us who love our jobs are

[00:04:58] usually working to, you know, earn money. And we work longer hours and stay at stressful,

[00:05:04] life-unbalancing jobs because we believe we need more money. And sometimes we really do

[00:05:08] need more money. Into everyone's life some unexpected bills must fall. But I bet if

[00:05:14] we cracked open our bank account statements and credit card bills, we'd see a lot of

[00:05:18] purchases that aren't particularly joy inducing and life sustaining. I'm talking to you,

[00:05:23] $15 Target sales rack impulse buy. Of course, there are lots of unsexy things we all need

[00:05:28] to spend money on. Insurance, medications, vegetables. But most of us spend thousands

[00:05:34] of dollars every year on things that don't make us happy or improve our lives in tangible

[00:05:38] ways. The more money we spend on non-awesome stuff, the more we have to work, the more

[00:05:44] unbalanced our lives get, the crankier we are, the more likely we are to self-medicate

[00:05:49] with $15 Target sweaters we don't actually want. Connecting work-life balance to Target

[00:05:55] impulse buys might seem like a stretch, and I realize that the psychology of money and

[00:05:59] happiness deserves a bit more than one bullet point in a blog post. Like it probably deserves

[00:06:04] an in-depth course or a whole book. But let's start by acknowledging that a healthy

[00:06:09] bank balance makes it easier to have a healthier work-life balance. And it's easier

[00:06:13] to have a healthy bank balance if we stop buying all those $15 Target sweaters.

[00:06:19] And four, sometimes work-life balance is overrated. Did you just fall in love for

[00:06:24] the first time since your heart-gutting divorce five years ago? OMG, put your energy into that!

[00:06:30] Did you just move to a new city for your dream job and you don't know anyone?

[00:06:34] In case you wanted it, you have my official permission to put eight of your 10 energy

[00:06:38] units into work right now. Have you been at the same totally lovely, can-do-it-on autopilot

[00:06:43] job for 10 years and you've just rediscovered your love for dance? By all means, put less of

[00:06:48] your energy into work and more of your energy into your dance classes. When you love something

[00:06:53] and it energizes you, allow your life to tip in that direction. And if work or boring social

[00:06:59] obligations or lawn care are unbalancing our lives, let's have the guts to tip our lives

[00:07:04] back to center. You just listened to the post titled The Truth About Work-Life Balance

[00:07:14] and How to Get It by Sarah von Bargen of YesAndYes.org. When it comes to hiring,

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[00:07:56] And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your

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[00:08:08] right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.

[00:08:13] Indeed.com slash startup. Terms and conditions apply. And a big thank you to Sarah who has

[00:08:20] consulted, strategized and ghostwritten for hundreds of companies, bloggers and

[00:08:24] entrepreneurs. Her clients include fashion labels, authors, life coaches, photographers,

[00:08:29] restaurants, psychologists, interior designers, and people who wouldn't want you to know they

[00:08:35] have a ghostwriter. In addition to writing three books and an e-course, Sarah's writing has been

[00:08:39] featured in a number of publications, including Buzzfeed, Forbes.com, Lifehacker, MindBody Green

[00:08:46] and Glamour. And ProBlogger named her one of 15 bloggers to watch in 2013. She has a bunch

[00:08:52] of great articles you can check out. So just come on by yesandyes.org to see all of that.

[00:08:57] So that's going to do it for today here on Optimal Work Daily. As always, I appreciate

[00:09:01] you being here and I'll see you right back here tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.