What are your options for improving your work life balance?

Call it work life ‘balance’ or ‘harmony’ or just life.

If it isn’t working for you…

You need to change things.

This post talks about HOW to change things.

Assumption 1 - You understand how you and your family feel.

If you’re not really sure then you must read this blog post first. It shows you how to assess your circumstances plus you’ll get some timely reminders about why it’s so important.

Assumption 2 - You have a problem with your current ‘balance’.

If everyone is happy then you don’t need to change anything.

✅We call it an ‘A’ in this blog post.

Assumption 3 - You believe it is possible to improve it!

If you don’t yet believe read how Dads like you have worked out their path.

Assumption 4 - You know your ‘WHY’

It’s a core principle that we teach:

✅ Talk honestly about what you truly want as a family.

a.       How often do you want to be at home?

b.      When do you want to be at home?

c.       What does this mean for you?

d.      What does it mean for your family?

Here’s a short video about Dads talking about what flexible working means to them.

✅ Know your options to achieve better work life balance

First up there’s a difference between ‘flexibility’ at work and proper work life balance.

Flexibility = taking time out from work to do life stuff.

Let’s include things like doctor’s appointments, emergency child care duties, working from home once a year to see the nativity performance.

For me this is just managing life.

For the purposes of this example, we’re going to assume a starting point of 40 hours - 9 til 5 pm

If you have others or a story to inspire than please do drop us a note!

⭐ your options to improve your work life balance ⭐

1. Core Hours with flexible hours outside of that.

2. A day or more working from home.

3. Leave early, log in at home later.

4. Flex start and finish times.

   1. Early in, early home. 7am – 4pm

   2. Late In, Late home. 10am – 7pm

5. Compressed hours - 5 days work ‘compressed’ into 4 days.

6. Home based working.

7. Part-time jobs – 4 days, 3 days, 2 days a week.

8. Job Share

9. Career change

HERE’S Some Inspiration…

Case study 1 - Flexi-time - with core hours

‘I exploit flexi-time in this area. I drop son off between 8:15 to 8:30 in order to get into the office for 9:00 am. I knock off early on Friday afternoon in order to collect son from nursery

Apart from core hours of between 9:30 and 4:30 tend to stay later twice a week to get out early or on time the rest of the week’.

Case study 2 - Flexi-time - with core hours

‘For me, it's all about flexibility and a credit to my employer, the kit they provide, and a boss who allows me to flex around work and childcare commitments.

My team and I keep core hours of 10am - 4pm, but flex around that to allow for earlier or later starts and finishes depending on life commitments.

And there's flexibility to work from home and/or catch up from home in the evenings if necessary. But it's all founded on trust and respect that it's all a balance... ‘

Case Study 3 - Compressed Hours

‘I do 10-2 pm Mon, normal hours on Tue , Weds and Thurs, Fri 10-2 pm ...so 4.5 days over 5. It worked really well. I got to set the week up well, work through Thursday with everyone and on Friday make sure everything wrapped up as well as could be.’

Case study 4 - Compressed Hours

‘10am - 4.30pm. This is to enable me to do nursery and school drop offs and pick ups.’

Case study 5 - 35 hours compressed into 4 days

‘I’ve been on 5 in 4 for the last 6 years. I had to cover off 8.75 hours a day.’ 

A note on compressed hours v 4 days

If you try and work part time, 4 days a week the reality is you're still going to work full time hours anyway, so go for 5 days worth of hours compressed into 4 days.

Your rights

Since 2014 everyone in the UK has had a right to request flexible working. Yes, you absolutely can ask!

Click here for a link to the UK Government press release.

Click here to find out about flexible friendly businesses.

There are clear rules that Employees and Employers must follow

Click here for a link on the rules on requesting flexible working.

Your plan

You need to consider a number of factors

1. Your boss’s potential attitude - how much do they trust you?

2. Your seniority - the more senior you are the more they want to keep you happy.

3. What are your remote tech options?

4. Meetings schedule

5. What have other people done? - most business it will be women who have achieved flexible arrangements.

6. Client expectations.

7. How much do you want it? What’s your why!

✅ Anticipate all their specific objections and address them.

✅ If you currently have team meetings at the start / end of the day, suggest that they can easily be moved.

✅ Accentuate the positives

✅ Say you'll be available at home for calls and emails if necessary during busy periods.

Need help designing and implementing your own plan?

We’ve got a FREE 10 page PDF called The Work Life Balance Top Ten Tips that sets out our key tips. click below to get it>>>

Or join our free Facebook group - full of guys like you designing and making changes to their lives.

The world is changing

⭐ How about this for innovation?

⭐ Four days a week?

Does your 'life balance' work for you?

Does Your ‘Life Balance’ Work For You?

Photo credit @photoholgic via Unsplash

30 years ago, I don’t suppose anyone really talked about “Work / Life Balance”. Life was simpler. When I was growing up in a market town in Somerset, dads went to work and provided, and mums looked after the house and made sure everyone was fed.

Our dad pretty much worked for the same company for 30 years until he took early retirement on medical grounds.

Sure, our mum worked a bit. I vividly remember that she had a cottage industry of ‘making boxes’ – even 9-year-old me could tell the piece rate was ridiculously low and she was also a childminder for time too.

Life felt a bit uncomfortable in the early 1990s but somehow dad was one of 3 out of 30 or so ‘at risk’ to survive a redundancy round.

One thing is certain it never felt like dad was always ‘at work’.

The signs of a changing world

We didn’t know any gangsters, so my dad was the first person I knew who had Carphone (back when The Carphone Warehouse seemed like the obvious name for a business).

He was surveyor, out on the road in Somerset – calling in his reports over the phone to be typed up in the office. But despite the technology there was never any danger of being ‘always on’.

In fact, my dad even had flexible working – he scheduled his own diary of house surveyor visits and frequently made his schedule fit the away sports matches my brother and I were involved in on Wednesday.

To state the obvious, life has changed…

The pressures are different - our parents didn’t have to cope with emails on their phones, data at their fingertips. Everything requiring their action.

If you’re a working dad, it’s important to make sure your work life balance is right for you and for your family. Long standing traditional gender roles of Men = Provider, Women = Caregiver serve many couples very well and can provide certainty in life. Giving opportunities to experience deeply accepted elements of masculinity and femininity.

But it doesn’t work for everyone.

Maybe your partner wants to build her career and would prefer not to be tied to endless parenting ‘duties’?

“I am not a parent yet, nor have plans to be in the next couple of years… I'm particularly keen for my hubby to be a 50/50 parent. I already get push back from him how that will be difficult!”

Maybe you are one of the many men who wants to spend more time as a parent - even if this means foregoing progress at work.

It’s time to Assess Your Work Life Balance….

Ask yourself which category do you fall into?

Be honest - how do your family feel about your ‘work life balance’

A = Everyone is happy with my work life balance.

B = I’m happy with my work life balance, but my family aren’t.

C = My family is happy with my work life balance, but I’m not.

D = No one is happy with my work life balance.

(E = I’m not sure what they think)

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What does this mean for you and your family?

A – This is the perfect situation - everyone’s a winner.

Photo Credit @juniorferreir_ via Unsplash

🏆 It doesn’t matter how you do it - this is what you want.

It might be that you work long hours, doing a job that you love and that provides you and your family with the life you all want.

✅ Perfect! Keep doing what you are doing - make sure you don’t inadvertently slip into B though…

B – This could easily become an issue.

❌ Here’s a couple of warnings… to jolt you out of complacency.

Imagine it’s your work anniversary on LinkedIn… among the notes of colleague respect is a comment from your wife:

“Congrats, let’s catch up”

I hope you don’t need me to tell you you’ve got a problem here and it’s time to do something about it before you face what Toby' faced…

❌ Toby and his wife are separated and to a large extent due to a failure to sort out their work life balance.

“If there's one thing I wish we'd done better, it would have been to have those really honest discussions - rather than the more off-hand comments and observations - about the work life balance for both of us, including as a couple and as parents.

But hey - we live and learn, eh?!”

B is not a good place to be.

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C - tricky one

Maybe your kids aren’t bothered if they see much of you as long as they get a new Xbox for Christmas?

Your partner likes the lifestyle you are able to provide.

If you want to reduce your hours, be more flexible or change jobs - how will this impact on your family - what you might see as good thing, they may only see the downsides.

✅ Open and honest conversations are key here - you need to be honest about how your current situation is affecting you.

✅ You will need understanding and practical and emotional support.

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D – what are you waiting for?

Time to do something different today!

E – Definitely time to find out

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Hopefully you've assessed your work life balance as an A, but as you can see above B and C aren’t great places to be.

Please don’t wait until the stress and anxiety gets too much, grab your free “5 Ways To Achieve Your Ultimate Purpose” download via the button below and make tangible steps to future that works for you.

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Joe Marler and Work Life Balance

Struggling with the demands of work and the demands of family?

Is it causing you stress, anxiety and a sense of letting everyone down?

After 59 caps, Joe Marler, England Rugby player decided to step away from the England set up "Being with England you have to spend an incredible amount of time away and I could not do that any more," he said.

He went one to say he was "looking forward to being able to give my wife and children more of my time".

After struggling with “the emotional and mental toll of being away from his family for long periods”, Marler choose to address it.

To work out whether it was all worth it.

Most of us are not going to reach the heights of international sport and the pressures on mind body and time that this brings, but we can all seek to understand why we do what we do and make sure it is all worth it.

Don’t keep putting your mental health at risk.

Start to be honest about what you really want and take action to get it.

As Joe Marler found, your honesty and integrity will gain you the respect of the people around you.

Eddie Jones, England Coach said

"He's a good guy - an honest, mature person who understands the demands of the game and the demands of family life. I have got to admire his honesty and the way he has gone about this."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/45659034

Photo credit - PA

Feeling like Joe Marler?

It’s time to plan your next steps

Me time and the Work Life Balance struggle

Don’t forget ‘me’ time when you plan your work life balance

According to Google calendar it’s Day 30/44 of school holidays. This is my first year with both kids in school and now both not in school (argh!)

It’s definitely tricky to balance everything - work, time with kids and personal time for both parents.

But by being honest about what you need, you can as a couple, reduce your guilt and stay content.

The amount of time required for each part of your life can be very different and it’s changes over time.

My wife needs many more hours for work than I do for instance and with the children being older the stress or boredom definitely reduce. You can actually have proper fun together as a family. But you still need me time.

It’s particularly tough with young children, but if you can both be honest about what you need it gives you a chance to work out the how.

Understand what you both need to be happy.

It might be a painful conversation if what you thought was true isn’t true.

But the sooner you both understand and share these 3 key things, the better.

✅Who do you want to Be?

✅What do you want to Do?

✅What do you want to Have?

Consider this blog post from a young dad called Adam. As a Dad taking shared parental leave he talks about the benefits of time away from his little boy.

https://www.jeffersfamily.me/new-bl…/…/8/20/hangovers-babies

‘I love my time with him but it does also make me appreciate my time without him too. It was entirely different to when I was working full time. I missed him lots day to day as I wasn’t getting that full-time quality time. Now that I am, a day without him doesn’t feel as big of a deal’

Not sure if you're on the same page as your partner?

Are you concerned that you and your partner aren’t on the same page?

Do you wonder if your family think it is all worth it?

These are natural feelings if you haven’t made certain you know, talked things through and written down what you both want to achieve.

You used to talk about the future, but life got super busy and now you are worn out and drained.

It’s tough to find the time, let alone the energy to properly talk about what you want to achieve as individuals and as a family.

And I know you feel the pressure of needing to provide and to be there when it matters and to be a great role model. 

and that's before you consider what you really really what...

Sometimes it feels like you are just surviving.

This is what you need to do...

1) Be honest about your life. 

How satisfied are you with each of the important aspects of your life?

Health, relationships, work, environment etc

2) Make a list of all the things you want to Be, Do and Have.

How does achieving these make you feel?  

3) Narrow it down to the 5 things that are really important to you.

4) Talk to your partner - ask them to repeat the process.

5) Spend some quality time with your partner.

What things are both your lists? 

7) Decide on your top 5 priorities. 

These priorities will become your shared family priorities.

It's useful if there is at least one each personal to you and one personal to your partner, but the number isn't as important as ensuring that you understand and respect each others priorities.

This list is about creating a shared focus and this process will build a deeper a relationship, improving communication, and know you'll feel happier being certain of your direction.

Once you have this list of family priorities, built on sound foundations and starting on the same page, you'll be ready to take action!

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