Relinquishee, Adoptee, MPE
Author, Speaker.

Outsource Your Life Balance?

I wrote a couple of weeks ago back about personal concierge services and how some have billed themselves as an answer to work-life balance. They’re pitching busy people – business owners, executives, working parents, and stay-at-home mothers – on their services.

Their premise isn’t difficult to relate to. We’re all struggling to maintain a balance between our work, family time, personal time, and hours spent with friends and in the community.

The latest pitch I read really got me thinking, however. The promotional copy suggested that we outsource our time. Apparently this would suggest farming out tasks or projects to others to make time for what we like to do, instead of what we have to do. In our instant-gratification society, this may make sense, but it may prove detrimental in the long run.

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A Day to Balance Work and Family

Did you know that this Thursday, April 26th, is Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day? Are you planning to participate?

According to the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work Day program was founded to create an opportunity for girls and boys to share and communicate their expectations for the future.

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Work-Family Balance and Gender Lines

Courtney E. Martin has an interesting article over at The American Prospect titled “Fighting Apart for Time Together: Why is all the activism for work/life balance split along gender lines?”

Ms. Martin takes the very complicated issue of work-family balance activism and makes it understandable. Here is how the discussion shakes out:

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Virginia Tech – In Our Thoughts

My PDA phone cashed it in the other day and I had to purchase a new one. I’ve spent several hours over the past 3 days getting up to speed and ensuring that all my data has transfered to the new one. I also played around a bit, much to my wife’s amusement, importing some pictures so that when my wife and kids called, I’d see their smiling faces on my phone’s display.

My daughter is a bit finicky about her photos and didn’t like the one that I chose, so I went to her MySpace page to download one that she had posted, reasoning that she’d obviously given it the thumbs up, and here’s what I found instead:

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Family Friendly Workplaces for Fathers

Fact: When we talk about “family friendly” companies, we’re usually thinking about working mothers, not working fathers.

Family friendly workplaces are usually characterized by discussions surrounding flexible hours, telecommuting, time off and leaves, child care support and assistance, and company culture – and company culture involves all of the aforementioned.

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Does Top Management Understand Work-Life Balance?

I’ve made several posts to this blog opining about the work-life discussion as it relates to corporations and employees. The way the debate is being shaped today, there are two conflicting formulas at work here:

For the company, Work-Life Balance boils down to this: Company = Good, Family = Bad For the employee, it looks like this: Family and Personal Time = Good, Company = Bad.

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Personal Concierge Services Promise Life Balance

In an earlier post today, I wrote about examining our motives when it comes to buying things – goods and services – to seemingly make our lives easier.

The vicious cycle looks like this: We work hard and long, so we wind up dining out several nights a week, or we hire a service to attend to our lawn or our homes or our pets because we “don’t have enough time.” We rely upon these things, and they become integral to our new budgets. This becomes our new ‘norm.’

We then want still more, so we work even harder, finding ourselves with even less time …. The pattern goes on and on.

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Engaging in ‘Retail Therapy’ to Achieve Work-Life Balance

Check out this post from A.J. Donnison, “the grumpy developer in the corner: Retail Therapy or Low Self Esteem?

‘Retail Therapy’ refers to something many of us indulge in: the act of buying something to make ourselves feel better after working many long hours. It may seem innocent enough, but, as Adam points out, it might serve us well to examine out motives:

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Work-Life Balance Considerations Critical to Executives

According to a recent survey of worldwide senior executives conducted by the Association of Executive Search Consultants, “87 percent felt that work-life balance considerations were critical in their decision whether to join, or remain with, an employer.”

Aileen Taylor, AESC member and Managing Director of Eric Salmon & Partners Limited, observed: “For the first time in twenty plus years in the personal care market place, I am seeing candidates prepared to down-size both their salaries and their prospects within large organizations in favor of quality of life.”

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My Life Balance

Well, it’s snowing here. I find it extremely ironic that the Cleveland Indians are in town playing ball at Miller Park due to the snow storm in Ohio and because our stadium offers the protection from the elements in the form of its retractable – and close-able – roof.

I’m taking advantage of a canceled appointment or two and some snow closings to share with you some photos I snapped a few moments ago, as well as to let you all know that my life balance/ work-life balance/ work family balance doesn’t consist only of work!

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Do Corporations Really Support Work-Life Balance?

The Work-Life discussion rages hot-and-heavy. From National associations to corporate HR departments to non-profit organizations to think tanks to university work-life centers and foundations – everyone is getting involved in advancing the work-life debate.

But are all interested in achieving the true goal of work-life balance? That is,are all parties dedicated to, as the Third Path Institute rightly defines it, “assisting individuals, families, and organizations in finding new ways to redesign work to create more time for family, community and other life passions?”

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What Is Balance, Anyway?

Leslie Morgan Steiner’s Washingtonpost.com On Balance blog post of March 29Th asks the following:

“So what is balance, anyway? Do you have to have children in order to struggle with balance issues? How do you find your own balancing point in life? What makes you think you are balanced — and others are not — or vice versa? What happens when you tip over — how do you right yourself and your life?”

Good questions!

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I Don’t Want To Talk About It

Some of you have noticed that I have posted a book on My Reading List on my Squidoo page Who is David B. Bohl? titled “I Don’t Want To Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression” by Terrence Real. When I say “noticed”, I mean you’ve wondered to me what that’s all about.

It is true – Dr. Real’s book is about men and depression. But it is so much more. I think the book jacket does a great job when it states: “I Don’t Want To Talk About It offers great wisdom, hope, and practical guidance to men and their families. This is one of the most important and straightforward books ever written about men.”

What I get most from Terrence Real’s book is a person who understands me. If you’ll indulge me for a moment, I’ll explain.

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Fathers Work Towards Work-Family Balance

According to the same study mentioned in yesterday’s post, fathers have just about tripled the hours that they spend being attentive to their children in the last 40 years (from 2.5 hours per week in 1965 to 7 hours today).

William Doherty, professor of family studies at the University of Minnesota, commented in the washingtonpost.com that “It’s not the case that men are slugs.”

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