Tag Archives: three resolutions

The Daily Win.

Featured

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on The Daily Win.

Tags

, , , , ,

I’ve said it before, so I’ll say it again. All those Californian, rich(ish) personal development speakers and writers and their ‘Rise at 5AM and exercise’ freaks are invited to come and live where I do in South Wales, where it’s easier to pick up the dog eggs in the garden at 6AM because they’re rock hard with ice. Where the idea of a home gym is fine if you live with a spare room big enough for a running machine or static bike, said room being centrally heated to at least ‘bearable’ for that early effort. And where going to bed early so as to get a decent kip before getting up at 5AM isn’t easy because the road and neighbours aren’t 100 yards away and are living their noisy lives while you try to drop off. And fitness clubs remain an expensive luxury.

Which is not to say that exercising is impossible. So far this calendar year, with the exception of the 1st and the 9th, I have exercised daily. Furthermore, with two exceptions, I have done so as soon as I got out of bed. Which, lucky me, is 7.30AM because I ain’t got a proper job.

I have a spin bike, a relatively inexpensive yet reliable (3 years so far) model. I have a mount (thank you Santa) for a 7” tablet through which I watch YouTube videos which inform, entertain or anger depending on the day’s choice. And a garden shed to put it in. There simply is no room in the main dwelling. You see, I am not a financial success like all those 5AM loonies. I am a moderate professional success on that I have always been employed doing work I enjoy, on the public purse in their service. So none of that ‘earn twice as much, work half as hard’ twaddle that Brian Tracy and Jack Canfield promote – which is valid for the entrepreneur or commission-paid individual but not the vast majority of us. If I wanted to earn twice as much as a copper I’d have had to work 76 hour weeks AND ask permission, first.

Each of us loves in his or her own circumstances, which do not necessarily reflect those described by such writers. Some do. Lucky them.

Back to me.

What gets me out of bed at 7.30AM, or more specifically onto the bike at 7.40AM, is The First Resolution. ‘To overcome the restraining forces of appetites and passions, I resolve to work on self-discipline and self-denial.’ I don’t want to ride a bike first, but it would be rude of a promoter of such a concept not to try. So that’s what gets me up. My Integrity. Doing the things I don’t like to do because (a) they serve me and (b) I said I would. If only to myself.

I should also be up front and state that it doesn’t work every day. If I don’t sleep well I’d make the next day worse, not better, if I self-flagellated with exercise before starting work. (I can always exercise afterwards, if I feel up to it.) But here, the point isn’t to apply self-discipline to the point of self-punishment. That’s a route to failure.

But I will also add that doing that exercise first, and educating myself while I do so, sets me up for the day exactly as Stephen Covey promotes in his books. He calls it the Daily Private Victory and to be fair, that’s as good a description of that process as any. It is (as he also puts it) mind over mattress. Long term gain over short term discomfort. Many cliches, all accurate.

I get up. I go out into the cold shed and exercise.

I win. The rest of the day is a breeze.

So much so, this took 15 minutes to write. In the flow. And with integrity – nothing I write is a lie to myself or to my reader. Whoever you are.

Be disciplined. But be disciplined early. Ish.

Your Vision REQUIRES The Three Resolutions

25 Wednesday Nov 2020

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Your Vision REQUIRES The Three Resolutions

Tags

, , , , , ,

Vision is often a beautiful product of an individual’s creative imagination, but it is achieved through application of that same individual’s independent will, allied to the faithful assistance of those whose sense of purpose complement that of the dreamer.

This means that while the former is a function of identity, experience and desire, it is nothing at all unless and until it is given life through conscious activity. Performance of that activity at a higher level brings with it an expectation that the individual directing that activity is, or becomes, competent in whatever skills are used in order to achieve the outcome, including those skills that engender, empower and enable the contribution of others in the enterprise. For everything we do well and for ourselves in pursuit of a dream, we do with, for and because of other people.

That is the motivation behind application of The Three Resolutions. Whether you use those three words or prefer to use different conceptual tropes, or are even just ‘winging it’ in the sense that you are ‘doing without thinking’, all successful endeavours rely on faithful application of The Three Resolutions.

The Three Resolutions are at the heart of any success. They state:

First Resolution – “To overcome the restraining forces of appetites and passions, I resolve to exercise self-discipline and self-denial.”

Second Resolution – “To overcome the restraining forces of pride and pretension, I resolve to work on character and competence.”

 Third Resolution -“To overcome the restraining forces of unbridled aspiration and ambition, I resolve to dedicate my talents and resources to noble purposes and to provide service to others.”

The primary message of each of these statements needs little explanation – they are all self-evidently true. No success would argue that they are not.

Yet people will actively argue that they are not, that there are nuanced rationales as to where and when they do not strictly apply. And even as they make those arguments they seem unaware that any success they have is the result of focused effort, industry competence, knuckling down when they’d really rather not, and providing sufficient service to others so that those others help them as they are themselves helped in a synergistic relationship.

At the same time as they argue against the timeless wisdom of philosophies that parallel The Three Resolutions, these people discover that their success is fleeting – they spark brilliantly for just a few moments before indiscipline, incompetence, a lack of character or a burgeoning, overwhelming self-interest grips them and casts them down – often very publicly.

Those who argue against such concepts as The Three Resolutions are hopeful that they won’t need to be disciplined; that they don’t need to have character; that they need serve only themselves.

For the most of us, however: we don’t argue against them. We acknowledge them, even as we wish they weren’t true!

So be in no doubt. Writing the book was and remains easier than complying with it. But well worth the effort.

Look at YOUR Vision. Will it/did it happen without application of The Three Resolutions?

If you find that you did apply them in order to achieve success in terms of your Vision – tell someone else. They need to know, too. So that they can work on their own.

Self-publishing. A Case, and a Plea.

11 Wednesday Nov 2020

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Self-publishing. A Case, and a Plea.

Tags

, , , , ,

Let’s be frank. If you search Amazon for a book by subject you will come across some plainly self-published books, and you might wince. I see ‘summaries’ of other writers’ works and ask, “Why not just buy the original!?” Many such books also come across as having only a few pages (with HUGE fonts) and that makes you question the value you’ll get as a purchaser.

However, I have read some very deep, well-written books that have been self-published via Amazon. The quality of the binding is fine if not spectacular, the authors have clearly considered their content and, occasional grammar and spelling goofs aside, they have been a pleasure to read. A good example is Tim Brownson’s “The Clarity Method” (although the © he insists on using for ‘his’ name for a values-based coaching method that has been around for 40 years irks a little.) Another fine book is Unified Power by Charles R. Hobbs and Greg  W. Allison – relatively short, but a deep exploration and description of how the principles of Integrity, (secular) Faith, Love and Purpose underpin our best work. So here’s the case for my efforts.

First of all, my books are 150 to 300+ pages, and I recently amended one because a purchaser said that the 130 pages of The Way had too small a font. It’s now 150 pages. My revision of Police Time Management will be well over 300 in A4, 12-font. MASSIVE. The Three Resolutions is also in a small font and 300 pages long. (Might have to make that bigger for the age-related squint.) In a nutshell, you get lots of paper and words for your buck.

Second, they are original. I’ll rephrase that. While any thought that gave rise to them arose from my own studies and experiences, they aren’t merely summaries of someone else’s efforts with little or no input from me. The Three Resolutions is a broad self-development  philosophy and approach to life based on a three page article by Stephen Covey, and brings broader self-help advice into a three step developmental process or paradigm. Police Time Management takes a lot of what I have learned and applied over 25 years and directs it specifically at policing and at the professional and personal lives of those with whom I was proud to serve. And The Way is a book in which I provide a progressive approach to identifying your own – not mine – approach to a congruent life. Yes, they have derived from my studies, but they aren’t in any way ‘just’ a summary of other works. (I was tempted to amalgamate them into one big book but you’d get a hernia carrying it.)

So they are self-published. I haven’t got a huge company behind me, just a life very much like those of most people. But when you first picked up a book by Sinek, Robbins, Covey or anyone else – did you know or care who they were or did you look at the description and contents page and think, “I must read this”?

Okay, that’s my pitch finished. But what about you?Is there a book in you? Do you have a philosophy, a story to tell, a standpoint that needs to be strongly promoted? Do you want to make a story up? Well – what’s stopping you?

You can write and self-publish at no cost via kdp.amazon.com, like many do. It’s easy and, as in the case of The Way font, you can immediately edit any errors in time for the next order! What’s more you can paperback AND Kindle your book, although there is an art to that.

You may only sell copies to yourself. But here’s the kicker. If you put enough thought and effort into your work you might find, as I did, that your cognitive and reasoning abilities, your understanding of what’s happening around you (and how you’re being played!) and possibly even your IQ, will be enhanced. You’ be better – ‘all round’ better. And you’ll feel a greater sense of self-esteem just for having done the writing.

So I’d ask you to do two things. First, write a book. Second, don’t dismiss a self-published book without at least using the ‘Look Inside’ facility that Amazon provides so that you can get a sense of the content of the book, the author’s style and the effort that was – or wasn’t – put into it.

We amateur wordsmiths thank you for the few minutes you give to us when you do that.

The Only True Pride – is Pride in the Truth

14 Wednesday Oct 2020

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on The Only True Pride – is Pride in the Truth

Tags

,

As we all sit at home obeying the advice, or sneak about defying the impositions placed upon us, we must all be wondering what the heck is going on at the top. We seem to be watching the Leader of the Opposition both supporting and attacking the Government in such a way as to be able to one day say, “See, I was right all along” because he’s playing both sides of the Lockdown argument while not being responsible in any way for the action that has to be taken. He’s a bit like the crowd of fat, XXXL team shirt-wearing, pie-eating experts in the stands at a Premiership football match, who all know they could’ve done better than the millionaire on the pitch while safely avoiding any exercise that reflects that expertise.

Which made me think about the Second Resolution as it relates to Competence and Character, and their opposites – the negatives of Pride and Pretension. On first seeing Pride as a negative you may be forgiven for thinking that Pride is a good thing, but in this context we are talking not about the sense of peace when we do a good job, but about excessive pride. This is the pride that prevents us acting with integrity when, having made a mistake, we refuse to acknowledge it. It is the pride that also makes us try to cover up that mistake, but that is outside the scope of this brief article.

What I see in politicians today is both disagreeable, and understandable at the same time. They exemplify ‘pride and pretension’ in the sense that they bluster and blather while insisting they have better ideas than the other side, while making sure that their position will not result in their being held to account. We know this to be true because the opposing ideologies are so obviously present – otherwise the parties wouldn’t ‘all’ be in agreement. But it’s understandable, if not forgiveable, because the minute any principled politician listens to advice and changes their policy – they’re slammed for being ‘forced into a u-turn’, as opposed to thanked for listening.

(Watching both sides of Congress debating the Supreme Court nomination is funny. Watching them arguing that the other side is wrong because the other side is doing what the first side did last time, after the other side opposed it, is quite funny. Attacking the other side for finally agreeing with you, while changing your own mind? Not at ALL partisan.)

This element of Pride is the sin of ‘Being Right’ regardless of incoming data. It’s about blind following of your preferred ideology even when you know, inside, that what you are doing is incongruent and undermines any integrity you claim to possess.

When I imagine the parties discussing “We’ll say that, because it means they’ll have to do that, and then we can claim that….”, I cringe. That is playing both sides against the middle instead of clearly deciding – and declaring – what is right. Now the mind-blowing bit – that applies even if they ZRE right.

Truth serves itself – it doesn’t need deception to justify its existence.

The other thing about telling the truth is that you don’t have to make up defences. You don’t have to tell another lie to support or cover the first. Gary King (http://garykinglive.com/truth-challenge/) talks about how research suggests that for every lie told, you have to tell seven more to cover it. And as per the Siphonaptera and its fleas, each of the seven lies has seven more little lies on its back to bite ‘em.

Exercising excessive pride to the extent that you lie – and ‘lie’ includes exaggeration and ‘being disingenuous’ to use the politicians’ obfuscation against them – is not good debating, positive strategy or justifiable in the (any) moment.

So stop playing games – we can see right through you, Mr/Madam Representative.

When over-focusing won’t work.

08 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on When over-focusing won’t work.

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

“The key to meeting an unmet need is in addressing, not ignoring the other needs.” Stephen R Covey.

It is widely acknowledged that we humans have four needs. Various writers have jiggled with them, added some, changed the terminology and so on, but for the purpose of this article I’ll use Covey’s four – the physical (food, drink, rest, exercise), the social-emotional (relationships), the mental (intellectual growth) and the spiritual (meaning). Covey opines that so often, when one of these needs is unmet we tend to address that gap it by only focusing on that area – for example, by exercising passionately when we need to lose weight. This can work, of course it can, but what about the other needs that are being minimised or even ignored while you sit and sweat on the exercise bike? Are you ignoring your spouse? Are you moving forward on your other, important goals? Are you ignoring professional development? Are all these areas suffering because of your manic focus on the ‘one problem’ you have identified? The answer is often Yes.

To the same degree, I decided to explore The Three Resolutions. In my book I describe how they present a progressive self-development from self-discipline and self-denial, through competence and character, to the achievement of a self-identified purpose through service to others.

I consider they confirm Covey’s thinking. My life’s experience is full of examples of people who focus in one or two areas identified in the Resolutions, and yet remain oblivious to the fact that their singular focus in one area prevents them becoming the best that they could be. (Of course, I also have examples of great successes who, coincidentally, demonstrate compliance with all three.) Athletes who excel – and then we find they used performance enhancing drugs. Amazing singers – whose hypocrisy about green issues gets laid bare when they buy a plane ticket for their hat. Dedicated politicians – whose expense claims render them untrustworthy.

For me, as for Covey – and I’ll be candid and say I ain’t no perfect example either – the finest expression of greatness is seen when all Three Resolutions are addressed, and when all three are addressed simultaneously. When we utilise our self-discipline to empower our competence, which is founded in great personal character, and serve others for a worthwhile purpose.

You can train in each area separately, but success in each enables success in all of the others.

So, just as Covey suggests with his needs, consider this: when you have a problem or personal challenge, don’t just think which ONE of the Three Resolutions you need to address: think how you could address that issue with all three.

Not fit enough? Don’t just hit the bricks (discipline) – research fitness (competence), train with and help others (service), and do so with dedication (character).

Don’t know enough? Don’t ‘just’ study (discipline) – carefully identify what you need to learn and set about it (competence), resist others’ invitations to take unnecessary breaks (character), and teach as you learn (service), which enhances that learning.

Want to serve others but don’t know how? Consider and understand your needs, capacities and competencies (character/competence), identify what service you can provide (purpose) and then learn ways of using that before allotting time (discipline) to providing the optimum service to the best effect.

You can be the buffest, prettiest, strongest, fittest, shiniest narcissist in the gym – but you won’t get the respect you’ll get if it’s all about you.

Exercise all the Resolutions. The best among us have shown you this works.

Why you should share this post.

30 Wednesday Sep 2020

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Why you should share this post.

Tags

, , ,

The challenge with LinkedIn and the Coaching Industry is this: I believe that most of the people on LinkedIn are, judging by their posts, pretty much where they want to be. They have the jobs they want in the fields that pull them. The posts I read are often swollen with justifiable pride at an Award, ‘delight’ at obtaining a new role, and gratitude for having experienced an old one as they moved on. That underpins the professionalism that LinkedIn is expected to reflect, surely?

Occasionally a poster seeks advice or help, but in the main they are marketing or they are demonstrating personal pride. Me too – there’s no judgement in that last sentence. So this is a message for all of our fellow professionals on LinkedIn.

What about your employees and peers that aren’t yet where they want to be? And what about your other roles? Do you need coaching/advice in their regard?

John Allan, architect at Stirling Castle, raised a stone upon which was inscribed the legend, “Whate’er thou art, act well they part.” It was widely thought this was a quote from Shakespeare but apparently not. It has inspired great leaders, regardless of where it was derived. But it isn’t about work alone. It is about all of your roles.

Back to the posters. Now and then, a post appears on my feed where someone has arrived at or pulled through a challenge that isn’t related to work. And that is the great leveller, isn’t it? Everyone on LinkedIn is a professional.

And everyone on LinkedIn has a life outside of their work. And everyone who works with or for a LinkedIn ‘name’ has the same challenges and issues as we members.

Allan’s quote reminds us that we play many roles in life, and that we should dedicate our ‘professionalism’ to all of them. We know of great actors and scientists and politicians whose personal lives were a mess – they played one role with aplomb, but bombed elsewhere.

One of your roles as a professional is your ‘job’. the other roles are trainer, mentor, team-mate, administrator. Your personal roles include brother, sister, son/daughter, spouse/partner, home-maintainer, finance manager – I give up, you make your own list.

And it pays us to be good at all of those individual roles, doesn’t it?

Going back to coaching – I know you might read posts such as mine and enjoy them. (Or not.) But your role as a mentor and colleague and yes, family member, behoves you to consider passing the content on to those you love, respect and empower. They may not be on LinkedIn: they may not feel as empowered and successful as you and may just appreciate the content of coaching posts because of that – and they may appreciate you for making it known to them.

Don’t look at a coaching post and think “I like that”, and/or “I don’t need it, though”, and stop there. Share it amongst your peers and hierarchy – sideways, up and down. Somebody might just see something they need at just the time they need it.

That is a service you can provide at the click of a button. Don’t just Like – SHARE.

You’ll be acting one of your roles very well indeed.

For more, go to threeresolutionsguy.com or visit HERE for the book, The Three Resolutions.

Here we go again? GREAT!!

23 Wednesday Sep 2020

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Here we go again? GREAT!!

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

What have you achieved during the ‘first’ COVID Lockdown period?

How you define ‘achievements’ in the question I leave up to you. You may choose work-related successes, which will include how you adapted your working practices to address the restrictions and the (yuk) New Normal; you can list any charity or community efforts you undertook; you can rattle through the personal development you made.

Or.

You can consider the lack of initiative you might have displayed in any or all of those areas. You can now consider what you could have done. You can think ‘I could’ve’ (not could OF) and ‘I should’ve’ and ‘I might’ve’. And you can wallow in the self-pity that ensues if you did nothing to take advantage of the developmental opportunity that this pause could have provided.

But GREAT NEWS!

In my area, several local authorities have been re-locked down. (In fact, Cardiff is technically under siege as it is surrounded by locked down unitary authorities.) There are constant rumours, even expectations that another national lockdown is a-coming our way. A second pause-button that you can press and decide ‘What can I do in this period of change?’

I’m lucky. I have no formal occupation other than writing and blogging so I had massive amounts of discretionary time. Oddly, I still have a 9-5 mentality and regularly ‘pack in’ at tea-time. Weird.

But in the period since March I have:

  • Lost 35lbs.
  • Increased my cycling – time and distances travelled.
  • Attended umpteen free webinars to stay on top of my game.
  • Sorted out some home-environments.
  • Written The Way.
  • Edited Three Resolutions. (Okay, I finished that just before it started but it needed a proof read.)
  • Rewritten Police Time Management (still doing that).
  • Had two mini-breaks with the extended family during the eased-off hiatus in the Pandemic Panic.
  • Refocused my mind.

And here we find ourselves at the cusp of another, allegedly 6-month lockdown opportunity.

The Three Resolutions ‘commitments’ provide a framework for consideration of exactly what you can do to take advantage of the gap. You can reinforce your self-discipline by choosing to eat less and exercise more. You can redefine your personal values and your congruence or incongruence in terms of how you behave in their respect. You can learn new stuff, or you can study the old stuff you need to know in order to do an excellent job. You can revisit your sense of Purpose and decide if what you are doing is right for you, while simultaneously considering what service, or what better service you can provide to others – either through work or in a voluntary capacity.

Or you can just accept the entropy that doing nothing engenders. You can actively pursue the self-redundancy that ‘just doing enough’ causes.

Which is the right choice? You KNOW it.

Now DO it.

Why I write what I write.

28 Tuesday Jul 2020

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Why I write what I write.

Tags

, , , , ,

“Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.” Louise May Alcott

I sat in my chair this morning, wondering whether the books that I write will ever receive the attention and interest that I desire – all writers want to be a ‘success’ – and then I read the above paragraph and realised that success or not, writing my books is personally rewarding and informative.

When we write, there is a lot ourselves in the result. And not necessarily the ‘us’ that existed when we set out to create, but the ‘us’ that we became as we went through the process of researching, drafting, refining and finalising what was finally put into the public domain. I know from my own crafting of The Three Resolutions that I have become more disciplined, congruent, competent and other-people centred than I was when I began exploring the concepts.

Zig Ziglar felt the same when he wrote ‘See You At The Top’. He tells in its pages of how he weighed several dozen pounds more than a personal development speaker and writer ought to, and part of the writing process was to slim down and get fitter so as to be seen to be what he professed he ought. Yes. I did that, too. Think of me as the less fundamentalist equivalent of that ex-smoker who evangelises at anyone who lights up.

So while I would welcome some interest in my philosophical and practical musings on self-leadership, and my experienced and researched counsel on time management for police colleagues, I haven’t in any sense failed just because I’m not as famous as Stephen Covey and David Allen.

I won’t achieve their levels of success and brilliance. But I can aspire, like Alcott, to do my best to apply what I have learned and about what I have written. If only because of my firm belief that what I learned – about the principles and about myself – make the whole effort worthwhile.

What are you doing to get even better than you are?

Available HERE

Serve – but don’t be selfish.

05 Thursday Mar 2020

Posted by in Purpose and Service, Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Serve – but don’t be selfish.

Tags

, , , ,

“The smallest good deed is better than the grandest good intention.” Duguet.

Having done time management to death for a wee while, I am reverting to promotion of the effective tenets of The Three Resolutions as I have reviewed, amended, added to and then re-published the book of the same name, available in paperback or Kindle.

The Three Resolutions propose that there are three commitments an individual can make in an effort to live a principled life. Those three commitments build upon each other, and while some may say they are common sense my response would be that ‘common sense is not common practice’, which is not me being clever, it was Stephen Covey who said it to me first.

Others may look at the subject matter and contents page and say, “I’m doing that already.” I know. Lots of people on LinkedIn are ‘doing’ a lot of that stuff. But I bet they aren’t doing it all, any more than I am. Yes, folks, I hereby acknowledge the imperfection in my dedication to applied common sense.

Ultimately, and without going through the whole Three Resolutions process, the end objective of the The Three Resolutions commitment is service to others, hence my quote. If i was to ask you the names of people who dedicate themselves to the service of others I am positive you would identify many a celebrity or other ‘name’ who clearly do serve in a charitable fashion.

But when I talk of service to others I am not focused solely on people who get great public acknowledgment (and publicity) for their efforts. I also mean the old lady in the charity shop: the man on a motorbike delivering blood: the lollipop man or woman interrupting their day to keep children safe: the administrator whose accurate records and good memory detects a murder (did happen): and many more unsung providers of service to others.

I’m often amused how someone at the top of their game being paid many thousands of pounds gets a medal for their service to their profession when the lower ranks who work harder, physically, get diddly squat. Their service is just as, if not arguably more, valuable than the knight’s.

The principle, for me, is this – service provided, whether for payment or for free, is service. There are no levels of superiority of service. However, there are services provided purely out of self-interest that I do NOT consider to be service at all. There is no harm in application of a ‘What’s In It For Me’ approach, because the answer could merely be ‘It’s the right thing to do and in keeping with my values system’, but when the question is asked and answered wholly in a ‘if there’s not enough in it for me I’m not interested’ manner – service it ain’t.

Going above and beyond the call, is service. Being paid for and doing a good, professional job, is service. Anything done completely out of self-interest, is not.

That is selfishness.

It’s just occasionally annoying how selfish people get rewarded, but they never said life is fair.

To paraphrase Mother Teresa, “Life is sometimes unrewarding: serve anyway.”

What will you do today, to serve?

 

For more on the subject, buy m’book on Kindle or hardcopy through the above links.

Book Cover Front

Juggling is for Jugglers.

14 Tuesday Jan 2020

Posted by in Time Management, Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Juggling is for Jugglers.

Tags

, , ,

In 2006, I attended The Seven Habits Workshop run by FranklinCovey in the UK, at their then HQ in Banbury, Oxfordshire. It was facilitated by the skilled coach Stephen Smith who, like me, looked a lot younger in those days.

During a ‘Why are you here’ session, Stephen asked the hitherto reluctant, waiting-to-see-how-the-land-lies participants “Well, do you want to improve your work-life balance?” As one might expect, we chorused in a fashion designed to at least give the impression of enthusiasm, “YES!”

“Okay then, let’s see just how much more work we can get out of you, then.,” said a smirking, ‘I-knew-you-were-going-to-fall-for-it’ Steve.

Very few people want to skew their work-life balance in favour of the former. Which is odd, really, because so many people do unconsciously skew their lives that way.

I know people who work every hour God sends in an effort to maximise income, only to swear blind that their ‘family comes first’. Which is not to say that they’re lying, just that what they are doing (working) may not be what they think they’re doing (providing a secure lifestyle for their family).

And I say that because I wonder if they’ve asked their families do they want mummy/daddy working for mo’ money – or do they want mummy and daddy present.

(I suppose teenagers may provide a different answer, depending on the level of gadgets they have or want.)

I believe, as do many in the ‘family field’, that what families need more than anything else, is presence. They want Ma or Pa to ‘be there’ at school concerts, recitals, sports events – and above all to be waiting when they need picking up. Selfish, really. But that’s what kids want.

Go home, be present. At least sometimes.

On another tack, in terms of the balance between work and ‘life’, since Steve regaled us on the matter the world has changed to the degree that the lines between work and ‘life’ have blurred. We are, thanks to the smartphone, available to work when at home, and home when at work. Few think about the appropriateness of crossing the divide. Most think it’s alright to interrupt people when they want, because they can. You may notice that phenomenon when you’re chatting to A and B butts in without an ‘excuse me’, because the smartphone has legitimised interruption.

Of course, in terms of the aforementioned work-life balance ‘thing’, when either interrupts the other our eye is taken off the ball in the moment. Concentration wanders, mistakes are possible, disaster can occur.

As far as possible, and in recognition that I use the word ‘appropriateness’ in this article, try to keep communication under the right heading. Work for work time, life for life-time, at least as much as you can manage. It’s the most productive approach to ‘The Balance’. It means you can get work done without thinking about cooking dinner, and it means putting the right amount of salt and butter into the mashed potato without wondering if that report you submitted is in the right post-tray.

Damn – now I’m hungry………………

 

For more, read this book!

PTM Pic