My Role in Work-Life Harmony
A few easy fixes to protect everyone’s time.
You can’t maintain work-life harmony on your own.
I’ve mentioned in a previous post the concept of a “work life harmony” instead of a “balance” - and many folks resonated with that idea.
As a recap, the idea is to have an effective merging of work and home (harmony) rather than a 50/50 split (balance).
But part of making that harmony happen is making sure that other people in the workplace are doing small but powerful things to ensure that this harmony exists. And as a leader, I’ve noticed not everyone on my team defines “balance” the same way.
For example, some people have strict boundaries around time. Others, like me, might be totally fine answering a Slack at 11 pm. That difference in work style can create friction, especially as we don’t always pause to think about how our habits affect others.
That’s why I’ve become a big fan of the “schedule send” button. I can write messages when it works for me, and they show up when it works for someone else.
I also try to add a simple tag like “(urgent)” or “(not urgent)” in the subject line. It takes two seconds, but it gives the other person permission to prioritize their time without guessing.
The truth is that work-life harmony only works if your team supports it together. Prioritize others, and they’ll prioritize you.