A Day In My Life: One Path to Work-Life Harmony

Today (Sunday) I slept in until 7:15 am, which is late for me, sat outside and had a glorious breakfast courtesy of my fabulous husband. I read the newspaper and watched my cats’ fascination with the frogs in our little pond. Then while still sitting outside enjoying the incredible weather, I did some work on my business goals for the week. We entrepreneurs and business owners do not necessarily work a Monday to Friday 9-5 pm job (by choice). After a while, I walked to the drug store to pick up a prescription and then walked farther to get in some outdoor exercise.

I stopped in at a favorite local ice cream joint to get myself a kiddie-size, mint chocolate chip ice cream cone. Sitting under a tree looking up at the clouds, I savored my ice cream cone and thought about what I wanted to communicate in this blogpost. Then I handwrote a draft.

After a while, I walked home and paid some bills. My husband and I made a tofu stir fry and then watched a TV show we like on Netflix.

As the day wound down, I made a list of the three most important things I wanted to accomplish the next day in my planner. I got in bed and played a couple of games of “Words With Friends” (feeding my competitive side), reflected on “What Went Well” today, read my novel for a half an hour, and went to sleep.

What Does Your Ideal Day Look Like?

This day may sound ideal or dreadfully dull to you. Or you might have little children running around your house who are your #1 priority and couldn’t possibly spend your day this way, even if you wish to. It doesn’t matter at all. What’s important is that within your circumstances and your preferences, you mindfully design some broad parameters of how you want to spend your weekdays and weekends so that you have greater satisfaction and well-being, “aka” a rich, fulfilling life.

Is There a Magic Bullet to Achieve Work-Life Harmony?

With work-life harmony, as with many issues in life, we want to believe there is some perfect solution out there—one magic bullet that we are somehow missing that will make everything fall into place.  AND then we can relax and be happy. We would like to believe all those Internet blog posts promising us the absolute best time to exercise, to write, to go to sleep, or to play.

I recognize that people use these kinds of catchy titles because they sell or get more followers, which truthfully I don’t fully understand. From my point of view, such titles make me mad. They promise that if we could only do things “right,” we would then have that desired happy and perfect life, the life that somehow social media always makes us think that everyone else has.

Designing Our Lives Goes Beyond Our Own Interests

The truth is there ARE better and worse ways to structure your priorities (I prefer the phrase to “design your life”).  But don’t let anyone sell you swampland and don’t drink the kool-aid. The tough part is that you have to use self-awareness and empathy for self and others to figure out what works. We are part of a living system both at home and at work. To my mind, we must consider our individual wants and needs as well as the needs of important others in our lives. To some degree, we must consider all others as well as our planet. We can’t be in “harmony” when we only live to serve our own interests. We are here to fulfill our unique purpose, which involves using our gifts in service of something larger than ourselves.

Be Intentional About How You Are Living

How you design your life, of course, depends upon your own one-of-a-kind personality, your unique life circumstances (e.g., age, health, geography, career type and stage, family situation), your values, and other preferences and factors. The point is that you must design it intentionally.  You need to tweak your design as you ebb and flow through everyday life, routinely bringing your attention to how you are living. Ask not, “Is this the best use of my time right now?” but instead, “Is this how I want to be using my time right now?”  “What are my important goals and priorities today?” keeping in mind what you have set as your priorities for this week, month, and year. Stephen Covey famously said, “put the big rocks in first” rather than the pebbles and grains of sand in which we typically remain mired.

What about you? What does work-life harmony look like for you? Please share your comments!