Work-Life Priorities

I live in Southern California, and we have been in a COVID-lockdown essentially for more than a year now.  Occasionally stores beyond essential open up, but they haven’t remained open long, and we are repeatedly reminded to wear our masks and to avoid socializing, even outdoors.  Many of us are working from home (wherever possible), and many of us have children schooling from home at the same time.

This has been one of those times when work-life balance has made itself clear.  In the early days, we had to determine our priorities and set them – Was it more important to look professional on our Zoom calls or to be available to our young children who were having technical difficulties logging on to their online sessions for school?

We also became very aware of the resources we had available – internet bandwidth, connected devices, family members or friends nearby who could help out in a pinch – or, perhaps more acutely, the resources we didn’t have available.  A lot of people made major life changes – especially moving out of the cities and into the suburbs, looking for more space.

Now that we’re starting to go back to “normal”, there’s a big question:

     What priorities are we keeping?

For some people, they have decided they want to slow down their pace of life.  For others, it turns out that work wasn’t that important, and they’d rather spend the time they have with their families and their friends than on their employment.  For still others, they determined they needed a new set of resources – being closer to extended family, more space indoors or out, less stuff.

How much time do you want to spend at work?  Is work your priority or your family, kids, friends, parents?  (Do THEY know that?)  Does work dominate your life to the point you “can’t” take a vacation? What can you do to be more intentional about the priorities in your life?  How can you support your people as they try to manage their work-life balance in their own way?