With what is happening to the world right now and how work and life are integrating. More and more conversations are revolving around work-life balance. I always wondered, what is work-life balance? I question myself when people keep talking about being able to balance it. Is it a myth? I feel like it is. But if it isn't, how do you really balance it? And I picked this book up because I agreed with the title that said The Work-Life Balance is a myth. Let's see what it says.
Imagine you are trying to end a hectic workday, where you get an email from your boss that there might be layoffs because of the ongoing situation, then suddenly you get into an argument with your loved ones because you don't get to spend much time with them, and then you get a mail notification regarding your unpaid dues. You think you are going to burst.
As human beings, I am sure that you have experienced this sort of overwhelming at least once in your life. I myself experience it from time to time. Sure it's normal to have occasional stressful days or weeks but a lot of people end up in a spiral.
Then you wish that there was a balance between life and work. Sadly those lines have even blurred further especially for those people who work from home.
The goal is not work-life balance, but harmony across all areas of your life.
It is not surprising that a big percentage of employees feel burned out at work. And we are now expected to juggle heavy workloads as well as personal and family responsibilities, with giving time for our interests in between.
This is the reason why work-life balance has become the ideal thought for preventing burnout. The author mentions that seeking balance is actually futile. Especially when the reality is that you are expected to be on call for 18 hours a day.
So what is it? What causes the stress? The book mentions that is because waking time is spent only in two areas - the family and professional "Slices" of your life - while neglecting the other five: the Personal, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual slices. The author calls these the "Seven Slices" that collectively make up your life.
So instead of us trying to do a balancing act, the moment we think in terms of the Seven Slices, it means that we are striving for harmony across the various areas that make up our lives.
So how do we use the seven-slice method?
It's basically a breakdown of the areas in our lives that require daily attention.
Sure, we can't be fully satisfied with every area of our lives all the time, but we can get close to it by connecting with all seven slices of our lives each day.
Let's break it down.
Each day, there are seven areas of our lives that require our mindful attention. Not just the common top slices most people have which are the Professional Slice, which helps us make a living, and Family Slice, in which we play a role as a child, parent, partner, or a combination. Sure those are pretty straightforward. But we should not forget that there are five others that we should pay and give attention to. Other than the Professional slice and the Family slice.
Let's go to the Personal slice, it involves our hobbies and personal pursuits that are unique to us as well as the time we spend alone.
The physical slice refers to the time we spend taking care of our body, through fitness or food.
The intellectual slice that feeds our curiosity.
Emotional slice where we understand how we think and feel about ourselves and our environment, and
The Spiritual slice where we practice and nurture our faith, values, and beliefs.
Okay so now that we know these seven slices, professional, family, personal, physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. How do these actually reduce stress? Can they really? How do we integrate them to achieve harmony?
Which will bring us to the first step. And this first step applies to many aspects of our lives.
Honestly assessing ourselves by looking at the seven areas of our lives. Where do we have an abundance of? Where do we have a lack of? Where do we need to direct more attention?
If you want to be serious about understanding and assessing, start with a spreadsheet with the seven slices as the columns, you can even go further and make it a pie chart. But we should honestly ask ourselves, what percentage of our time each week we spend in each slice of our lives?
Here is a quick guide on how to assess.
For professional and family, it's easy to assess. And usually, it's the biggest percentage.
For the physical slice, we should look at the time we spend taking care of our bodies. Do we actually exercise regularly, or only when it is convenient?
Same with the emotional slice, consider how often you think about your feelings in a week, yes it may sound touchy-feely, but it actually helps us understand if we are in control of them or if our emotions are in control of us.
For the personal and intellectual slices, we should think about how much time we spend engaging in hobbies for pleasure and learning out of curiosity. Learning because you have to, does not really count.
Finally, the spiritual slice involves the time practicing faith, engaging our inner world and values, through various methods such as reading, prayer, meditation, or actions such as good deeds.
We should take time to consider each one and determine the percentage of the time we spend on them and write it down. Of course, it has to be realistic in the sense that all the percentages have to add up to 100%, not more, not less.
We are trying to see an accurate snapshot of our lives so we have to be honest without any self-judgment.
Doing this will give us an understanding of why some slices dominate, and others don't. And this is what will help us change dramatically in the future.
To be fair, we don't neglect areas of our lives willingly or consciously. And we do get busy with some things more than others.
So the best way for us to overcome this is to think of the smallest steps we can take to spend time on each slice of our lives every day.
Interestingly, I tried this out. I found out that I was neglecting my physical slice. So I decided to take short walks. I was consistent with it, and seeing how it affected me positively physically and mentally, now I am into different fitness activities such as running, cycling, and swimming. I get to wake up earlier than before and actually feel like I have more energy throughout the day. And I was able to stay consistent because the motivation was that I wanted to be able to perform better in my hobbies such as staying longer underwater.
But the author mentions that we have to consider our personal motivation style when determining our plan of action. So what I just mentioned about doing things for my physical slice, might not work for others.
This is why understanding the areas in need of attention and how we are motivated is crucial to planning. Are we more group-oriented, are we self-starters? The more customized our plans are to motivate us, the more likely we will stick to them.
The author also mentions a crucial point when spending time with our slices. It is not about the amount of time you spend in each area of your lives each day, but the quality of it.
Picture an orchestra, the musicians are waiting for the conductor. Once the conductor taps his stand, the musicians raise their instruments, waiting for the conductor's signals. And when they perform, they do so as one unit. Following the lead of the conductor to create harmonious music.
So we are the conductors of our own orchestra, and we have seven slices or instruments to conduct. It is up to us to bring about our own sense of harmony by making all the instruments play a role in the music we create.
And living in harmony allows us to manage stress and approach each day with a brighter attitude. Solutions to issues will appear more readily available since our minds are clearer.
The whole process boils down to three steps. Assessment, Reflection, and Action. And with this, we need to plan so that we can be consistent and intentional with things.
For example, we can determine if something is contributing or distracting us, we can do a quick check. Let's say after doing a k-drama marathon for a few hours, we can ask ourselves if we feel refreshed. If yes, then this activity is serving our personal slice. But if we feel the same or drained, then we should think about how much time we spend watching and maybe use that time to do something else for the other slices of our lives.
So instead of trying to achieve the impossible goal of work-life balance, the Seven Slice Method can help us achieve harmony in our lives by paying attention to the seven key areas of our lives. Once we can grasp how our life is divided into the context of Family, Professional, Personal, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual Slices, we can begin to make a plan to integrate each area of our lives that we have been neglecting.
And that was a quick summary on Work-Life Balance Myth by David J. McNeff.
Feel free to share this episode with others.
If you enjoy these weekly summaries, you can support the Dae Lee Book Club community by just buying me a cup of coffee or becoming a member of the community!