Work – Home – Life Balance

In a recent conversation regarding finding the balance between personal and professional lives, it seemed clear many people understand the issue, but do not fully comprehend how much these two elements influence each other.

There is not a wall between job and family. Here is a brief review of what is known about the job-family intersection. The six primary findings:

1. Behaviors at work are repeated at home.

2. Moods/emotions carry over from work to home and home to work.

3. Work affects status, self-concept and well-being.

4. Work patterns are related to parenting practices.

5. Work takes time, energy and involvement.

6. Work is inherently stressful and insecure.

For an in-depth review of this issue and what can you do to balance better go to:

http://www.corridorbusiness.com/consulting/maintaining-balance-in-your-life/

“Sorry, I’m Late” How texting damages relationships

Recently the Wall street Journal had had a great article entitled Sick of this text: “Sorry, I’m late?”  The essence of this is people are using text messages to postpone meetings with the promise they will soon be there – but are not.  The starting time of one-on-one social and business meeting starts slipping and becomes long delayed.  The postponer/offender believes she has satisfied “violating the start time agreement” and the receiver, who does the waiting, is angered or hurt.  The article offers a set of eight suggestions on how to deal with this new discourtesy.  It’s a good read and a timely wake-up call to those of you who have fallen into this practice.

By the way, lateness, particularly to meetings, by managers is perceived as not only a discourtesy but also an unwarranted demonstration of power.  As in “I can make you wait because I am your boss.” Repetitive forced waiting of people is a of those small but corrosive trust-busters.

The Science of Happiness

Searching in TED, I found two very interesting videos on happiness.

Psychologist Nancy Etcoff (19:43 minutes) on “The surprising science of happiness.” This is a lucid and entertaining scientific overview with lots of interesting data. She introduces a human response I had not of heard before, biophilia.  If you can find 20 minutes, take the time – it’s worthwhile.

Dan Gilbert (21.20 minutes) in “Why are we happy” places happiness in the evolutionary continuum and gives insights into how our minds steer our happiness.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of……..

Recently in a leadership group we were discussing happiness, and did a round-robin self-assessment of our levels of happiness.  We all agreed we were a pretty happy group.  This was especially true of one of our members who just got a new, and apparently more interesting and pleasant boss.

Happiness is explicitly noted in the Declaration of Independence, so Americans have been striving for this fine state of being for some time.

There are now tests to measure the level of our happiness and there seems to be some agreement on what are the core causal variables that produce happiness.

For an interesting (five quick questions) self-survey of happiness,

Goto: http://www.meaningandhappiness.com/life-satisfaction-measure-yours/63/

There are quite a few interesting links on this site.  I particularly liked the one on Gratitude.

For a short overview of happiness and the primary variables that contribute to happiness go to:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/happiness_formula/4783836.stm