Balancing Work and Family
When I read this article about how Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, leaves work at—gasp! 5:30 pm every day—I was both happy and annoyed.
I am a huge proponent for working smarter—not longer or harder. I can get done in a few hours what takes some people all day. I am lucky that I have the ability to block out everything around me and have a laser focus on the task at hand for a good amount of time. I hear that when I am doing this, I get a crazy look in my eye and I come off as utterly pissed off. I’m not—I’m just on a roll!
I make it a point to leave my office between 5 and 5:30 pm every day. Sometimes I can’t because I have an event to go to or something that must be finished. But, on the whole, I stick to my own personal deadline.
Keeping this schedule helps me in many ways. Here are some of them:
- My office doesn’t have a window and I need fresh air and light. I hate leaving the office when it’s dark out—it depresses me.
- I freelance and teach on the side. When I go home, I’m doing other work for part of the week—these blog posts included! I need to set a time to turn off my full-time job so that I can work on my freelancing. There will come a time when my full-time job no longer exists, and when this happens my schedule will undoubtedly morph. But to stay sane and get things done, I don’t work overtime if I can help it.
- I love my friends and family. My husband travels for work, so when he’s home, I try to spend as much time with him as possible. He gets out of work around 4 pm, so I try to get home for dinner every night of the week if I can when he’s in town. We also do dinner with my sister and her family or my parents at least once a week. We also have friends we like to spend time with, and with weekends being so crazy busy with kid activities, grabbing a drink or a bite to eat with friends after work is a must.
- I am the new co-owner of a wedding magazine (like I need another job, right?) and we spend a good amount of time in January, February, and March at wedding shows on the weekends. I need to get out of work during the week at a normal time in order to feel like I have free time to do what I want.
So, bravo to Sheryl Sandberg for putting having dinner with her kids before her job. But what bothered me about this post was that she feels she needs to make up for it by working late at night and very early in the morning to prove to her colleagues that she’s working hard.
To make up for ducking out at 5:30 p.m., Sandberg said, she would send emails to colleagues late at night and early in the morning as proof that she was still giving her all to work:
“I was showing everyone I worked for that I worked just as hard. I was getting up earlier to make sure they saw my emails at 5:30, staying up later to make sure they saw my emails late. But now I’m much more confident in where I am and so I’m able to say, ‘Hey! I am leaving work at 5:30.’ And I say it very publicly, both internally and externally.” — mashable.com
I understand that some jobs require more than 40 hours a week. And Sandberg’s job at Facebook is one of those jobs. This article says that, “There should never be any shame associated with heading home before 6 p.m. to eat dinner with one’s children and spouse, and Sandberg is sending a much-needed message to parents everywhere that it’s OK to leave work before dark for family time, especially since research has shown that children are healthier, happier and better performing students when they eat with their families.” But what they should have added is that people who DO leave work to eat dinner with their families often feel like they have to “make up for it” by putting in extra time, no matter what. I feel like the message being sent here is mixed.
I hope Sandberg doesn’t have an overwhelming guilty conscience about ditching work for her family—because she shouldn’t. You can make all the money in the world, but if your kids hate you and your husband or wife resents you, how great is your life?
I will never feel guilty about choosing my family over my career—because it’s my choice. Sure, at times there will be struggle to juggle both, but I don’t want to ever feel guilty about it.
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I think this is the key:
“I will never feel guilty about choosing my family over my career—because it’s my choice.”
Quoting Neo: “The problem is choice.”
Interesting and nice job in keeping a balance, I’m sure it’s not easy but the rewards are worth it! Life is just too short to take so many opportunities for granted, reminds me of the quote “moving forward no matter how small, call it order from a crumbling wall..”
Part of why I became a full time freelance writer was because it bothered me to leave the office at 530- which is LATE to me. My kids are out of school by 230, home by 4 if there are sports involved. No way am I being tied to a chair when my kids are doing who-knows-what (getting too old for aftercare).
I’d rather work at 9p-1130p when they are asleep anyway.
In my home, 3-9 is family time. Not an hour of dinner.
Currently I am workaholic and I can work from 8am to 11pm without any problem. Even the productivity is not affected as I am taking weekends completely off from computer.
Hope I will be able to wok only from 9to5 someday.
A mentor of mine once told me that you are working past 5:30pm, then either you have too much on your plate, or you are not managing your time right.
As a Type A personality, with a desire to constantly overachieve, I took that advice as reason to start my work day earlier:)
Over the years, I have learned- as you explain- to set boundaries, relax a little, and put family first.
Some things that have helped…
1) An alarm clock- set for the top of the hour…I force myself to get up from my computer and dance, move, or do something active. I am much more creative and active when I get back to the computer.
2) Turning OFF the electronic devices and email- With them on, there are too many distractions. Productivity comes to an screeching halt each time my email notification beeps or phone rings. It’s been difficult, but the gains in productivity are huge.
Tiffany,
I totally agree with your tips—the alarm clock and turning off the electronic devices. I think the same goes for those pesky social media sites that suck your time away. If you don’t have them open on your computer, you can’t be tempted to just see what your friends are up to….
m.
You really shared very important topic because this is the problem of many people (including me). Many times and in many cases i have become unable to manage my work and family together. This article seems subjective for me and have some great points that i need to follow. Nice article guy….Thanks
Melanie
I know this post will resonate with many men and women. It does for my husband and I. I have made a choice for the work at home lifestyle. On days when I have to choose between missing an event that’s important to my child at school I’ve had to remind myself I chose this method of doing business for the flexibility. As my husband moves up in management in his job, he’s also had to make these kinds of decisions. Observing him I can tell that he wrestles with the perception of commitment to his position and being fully engaged while at home.
There are many points of view on this, because also if you work smart, there are some situations when unfortunately you cannot balance work and personal life.
The important thing in my opinion is to not regret of the choice made, in any case.
I also think that this choice can be different in different moments of life because there are moments when you want to dedicate to work and others that you feel the opposite.
In my personal experience, though I’m a manager and not of the middle level, I cannot make like Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO that leaves the work at 5.30 PM mandatory, because my work starts early, involves lot of travel and most of the times ends up late. I do not feel “abnormal” for this, because love it or not it’s my work. What I do to “compensate” in some way, though I cannot simply close the phone, is to completely cut the bridges with work when I’m home.