How to Balance Work, Life, and Family
I met an incredible entrepreneur at an event who asked me about balance in work, life, and family. Tanyalynnette Palmo is the CIO of GreenWave Technology Corp, and the CEO and Founder of Allaxoun. This busy business woman, wife, and mother asked: “What are some tips that you can give about balancing the work life of an entrepreneur (which never ends) and family?”
TL, I hope my answer helped, and thank you again for asking!
For more information on living a balanced life, check out one of my most popular all time posts: Zig Ziglar’s Wheel of Life
I am working on being more intentional about being fully present when I am spending time with my wife & daughter (the phone goes in the other room). Thank you for this post & thank you for the work that you do.
I love it Jared. That’s what it takes!
These thoughts come to mind: Boundaries. Guard rails. Communication. Agreement on expectations. Set times to unplug.
As one of my college profs used to say: “Wherever you are, be there.”
Preach it!!
One of the most important things I am focused on. When I walk through the door, I’ve got to hide the phone and listen.
Incredible advice Chris! I have a feeling there a lot of Dad’s out there that needed to hear this today. I’m one for sure.
With that being said, I’m taking my 5 year old out to lunch today for her last day of daycare before starting kindergarten next week. I have no idea how I’m going to get away from work… Just going to walk away and turn off my phone. She deserves that!
Thanks for the reminder!
AHHHH!!! I love that Bob!!! That will blow her away!!
Everyone once in a blue moon I surprise my older boys with pizza at school and then sit and have lunch with them at the Cafeteria — makes them “Big Shots” on campus for the day =) Even when they are older, they may not say they like it, but they can’t hide the smiles
OOh, bribe them with Pizza, great idea! Why didn’t I think of that? Awesome!
Go Bob! That’s awesome!
Why am I picturing you as a cheerleader now? That’s Lily, the CLo-Cheerleader! And so much more… 😉
I have a 5 year old girl too. They’re so much fun and they love special time for them!
She’s the best cheerleader!!!
What I really like about this is you take apart the buzzwords work-life balance and put some focus and some practicality to it. This is great advice, especially scheduling time with the family and figuring out ahead of time what to do with that time.
Thanks Chris! I think sometimes we just have to hear it for what it really is.
My company calls it Work-Life Integration instead. Seems to have a nicer ring to it. 🙂
This is so true, Chris. I tell people that I work half-days. 12 hours makes a half day, right? When you add 7 hours for sleep, there’s no way to balance that! Buzzword is right!
Lily, I have had my share of 12 hour days. I work in litigation consulting, so it’s tough sometimes to find that balance.
WOW– GREAT Advice Chris! Thank you so much for answering my question. I’ve gone ahead and put in all the kids school schedule into my calendar as well as all the sports activities. Michael and I figured two family family weekends and he and I scheduled one — Family comes first, so I want to make sure I see the non-negotiables when I start to schedule my crazy travel schedule!
My pleasure TL! And that’s awesome how much you’ve already accomplished!
Great question AND great advice! Thank you for your insight. It always seems as though each area of responsibility – spiritual, professional and familial – demands 110% of our time, effort and focus.
It is definitely difficult to perform this balancing act, but, as you advised, we have to be intentional about our responsibility to our families, spending quality time raising our kids and nurturing our close relationships.
That’s it Mitch. If we’re not intentional, we’ll look up and our 2-year-old will be 20. Thanks for the great comment!
Recent increased balance has come since you shared a podcast (I think it was) about Peter Bregman and his book 18 Minutes. HOLY MAN ALIVE! Such a great tool to be able to schedule my priorities, focus on them, and then leave work at work so that I can truely enjoy my time at home without worrying about all the stuff I didn’t have time to get done. (Thanks for that, btw!)
Then learning to put that same scheduling technique to my home plans – to be able to happily balance triathlon training, vacations, and lazy coffee on the couch mornings!
BAH!!! I love the HOLY MAN ALIVE!! Girl, I’m impressed with the triathlon training! I have the lazy coffee on the couch part down. 😀
Thanks Chris! The coffee is the easy part – weird, right? 😛
I love it Chris! Thank you for your encouragement.
Mondays and Wednesdays are my work nights. All the other nights are filled with something else! But Thursdays are date night with my two year old. I highly recommend starting early with this dads! We go on walks, play at parks, we have a blast. And Friday nights are date nights. Grandparents take the kids for the night.
I love it Alex! That’s exactly the way to start!!
Definitely one of the hardest things to do. We have such limited time with our kids that I worry about the impact on their lives of having both parents working. My mom stayed at home with us so I didn’t have a reference point for the life of a working mom. You know what they say that good moms have sticky ovens and happy kids? Yeah. That’s me. It goes way beyond the sticky oven, so I give up doing housework to snuggle on the couch with the kids and watch a favorite movie. This Saturday we’ll take time to go to a tractor show, to celebrate our son’s 3rd birthday. Our family time is precious. My kids don’t care if I received a performance award at work, they care that I know the names of their daycare friends.
AAAAAAAAAMEN!!!
At our house, the dinner table is sacred time and gives us an opportunity every day to connect and communicate. (My waistline attests to this as well…)
Also when I first launched my business in 2010, I worked out of the house and made sure to take the kids to school and pick them up. Being able to work virtually has been a blessing too. With my laptop or my phone, I can pretty much work anytime, anywhere…
Mike Koehler
My kids like sharing “highs and lows” at the dinner table. At their young ages of 3 and 5 , it’s pretty cute what they come up with.
Oh, one more thing.
Something I do now that school is started is that every day at 2:30, I send an email called “The Daily Daddy,” with jokes, scripture, a little about my day and some questions we can talk about at dinner that night. If anyone wants an example of one of those, let me know.
Oh that rocks!!! I love it!!
ok, that is plain awesome.
So refreshing to hear this. Not many CEOs follow this, making it harder for senior managers to find this balance as well. Always nice to keep in mind that your employees have taken the job to help them live their life, not to be their life. Great message and great delivery. Thanks.
That’s so true. The pressure from the top is for senior leaders to make their business their life. Thanks Andrea!
When it comes to time – Quality at work, Quantity with the family…
(the quantity at home needs to be quantity of quality)
Wurd!
The key to what you said that I loved is right now. Great stuff Chris. I to often put my family into someday column. The funny thing is the more I put first things first the more effective business owner I become. God, family, then my ministry which is my business.
Nice beard, Chris. :-)]
This is great advice. I want to have more time with my family, but I know I’m still the building stage. So I’m seeing them less than I want so I can try to get it going. I think it’s good sometimes, though, to take a short break, come up for a breath of air, and spend a weekend with the family. Then back to work.
Nice!
I finally got a chance to watch this. I struggle with an ‘all or nothing’ highly addictive, ADHD personality. I like the idea of ‘bustin’ it’ in short bursts. Thanks!
SO true! SO good! So nice to hear sound advice on preserving families! Thank you Chris!