Banishing the "Balance" in Work-Life Balance

As a working divorced Mom I look at it as balance between work, family and other parts of life over time. It's comparing each piece of life over time to best suit your life. It isn't so defined as a percentage equaling 100. I'm not banishing the balance term.

Just saw this funny item on Mommy Track'd:

Balance is bull; it's bunk. It just isn't natural. And in this purportedly post-racial, post-gender world, it feels simply passe. Once and for all, let's accept that there's no zen-like state of being where all aspects of our lives are in perfect proportion.

http://www.mommytrackd.com/post-balance

When I think of "balance" I don't think of a perfect moment where everything is equally prioritized and humming along. I picture the old guy-spinning-plates-on-sticks routine, whereby I am parceling out my energy and attention to whichever plate is in danger of falling off the stick! In the context of work-life, the word "balance" has enough media momentum (especially since Michelle Obama declared it a focus of her First Lady duties)that it is instantly understandable. Unless I hear a better catch-phrase, I'm not banishing it either!

This is topic that I've thought about a lot. I think the term "balance" is nearly impossible to achieve. I prefer the term "work-life integration". I wrote an explanation for this in response to your posting. Check it out at reversedroles.com.

Funny. As a small business owner mother of two small kids the word balance is not in my self-referential vocabulary...Perhaps that's why I'm so content.

My 13 years of experience helping countless organizations and individuals implement work+life flexibility strategies has confirmed that there is no such thing as "balance."

In fact, of the tens of thousands of people in the audiences I've spoken to over the past 5 years and have asked if they'd achieved "balance," maybe 10% of attendees have raised their hands. It doesn't exist, but worst than that it is the "thing we don't have." So instead of seeing the possibilities for our work and life, we only see what's not there.

The answer is work+life "fit" or the "fit" between your unique work and personal realities at any given time. And that fit will change day-to-day and during major personal and professional transitions throughout your career such as becoming a parent, caring for an aging relative, and retirement just to name a few.

We need to actively and consciously manage our unique work+life fit everyday and when we see an major change in our circumstances taking place. There are no right answers, only countless possibilities. And the choice is not "all or nothing." It's about your work+life fit, and managing it is a new skill set we all need to learn. For more information, check out www.worklifefit.com.

I think it is a conception impossibility but so may be banishing it. We have tried to banish it at my company but to no avail. We use integration and effectiveness and personally I manage my work and life responsibilities and I NEVER feel balanced but everyone else continues to use the catchphrase "work/life balance". I don't like it but can't get rid of it either.

To me it feels like a juggle and how well I am managing the juggle. There is no balance - there are priorities. Some days I juggle better than others. It may have to do w/the number of things I'm juggling or just my state of mind and how well I'm coping w/the juggle - they are not always the same. sometimes I juggle well w/a lot - sometimes a few things and I just can't cope... But it never feels like there's any perfect balance.

I like the term balance. I have never considered it to mean a daily life of issuing my time/energy/priorities equally in some 24 hour period. I've also never considered it as a means to peaceful living if by peaceful one means smooth, easy flow. What I consider as the "work-life balance" is a woman's attempt at finding the space for her many priorities throughout her adult life. The "balance" lies in feeling that one priority has swallowed her whole such that she is unable to have these other elements in her life. I can't imagine such a thing as life, let alone a mother's modern life, to ever be not messy. I love my work. I love my kids. I love my family life, personal time, and my home. But I certainly don't have them all in balance every day. The "balance" emerges over time, when you look back at your year or the last few years or look forward to the plans you laid out for the years to come and you realize that you have been able to keep all these elements in your life more or less successfully. To me, that's a beautiful balance. And it takes the pressure off of doing it all now, and doing it all correctly all the time. I think that Martha Graham said it best, although she was not speaking of work-life balance per se: "There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive"

Having just recently gone back to work fulltime I think life is a balancing act of time with the kids, time to get things done at work, housework, and everything else. It sounds like maybe you aren't happy with how much time you spend at work and how much time you have left to spend with the kids. Whatever you call it there will always be the guilt/struggle that most working moms will have to deal with about spending quality time with the kids and getting the necessities of life done (whatever those necessities may be).

We talk about Work Family Flow - not work-family balance because 'balance' is neither the right way to think about how work and family interact, nor is it the right goal. Work Family Flow is about 'optimizing' work and family not balancing.
www.parentwellbeing.com

As someone who researches and consults around "balance" issues, the term "balance" signifies equal time, and often has the connotation that work is bad and non-work is good. Instead, we should be talking about the way we manage multiple roles because there are only so many hours in the day and we only have so much energy to invest. Anyone looking for true balance is probably living a pipe dream.