Last week I attended the breakfast put on by Community Business to present their survey findings around work-life balance issues in Hong Kong.

You can download the full survey report  here - and I think you will get a lot out of it if you make HR decisions for your company.

One of the best suggestions made during the morning was for businesses to study the questions asked in the survey and to find ways to get input from their own employees on the issues raised. This information will form the basis of a work-life balance initiative that makes sense for your corporate culture and values.

To give you the gist of the results – here’s my summary of the key findings:

• Most employees’ expectations of their employers’ obligations to address work-life balance issues remain unchanged, despite the economic recession.
• For Hong Kongers, the ideal work-life ratio would be 62:38.
• 30% would consider leaving their current jobs for a better work-life balance.
• Hong Kongers are working an average of 48.4 hours per week, down from 48.8 last year. This is 21% higher than the 40 hours recommended by the International Labour Organisation.
• Gen Y is more concerned with work-life balance than Gen X.
• Those making less than HK$10,000/month work the longest hours and struggle most with work-life balance.
• Financial security was rated the greatest challenge to achieving work-life balance. The 2nd greatest challenge is long working hours, 3rd is company downsizing and 4th is leader’s attitude.
• Work-life imbalance is causing prolonged fatigue, insomnia, poor diet and not enough time for partner and family.
• Employees cite a 5-day work week and more paid annual leave as the top priorities for employer intervention.
• Flexible work arrangements and the ability to work from home are also key areas for employers to address.

My response?

We have a lot of valuable data about where people’s time is going and how they want to be using it. Companies need to work out ways to measure the quality of this time, i.e. just how productive are these working hours?…and could the same output be achieved by employees who know how to work efficiently in non-traditional locations or at different times of the day/night? Could they actually get MORE done this way? Can management be tangibly assured their people are working hard even if they’re not sitting in a cubicle all day?

I say yes – The right people with the right skills and the right boss can definitely pull it off. Teams will need to learn new-fangled collaboration techniques in order to make it work, employees will need to manage their workloads effectively, and managers will need to focus on deliverables rather than seat time.

The group commented that what is commonly meant by the ‘life’ side of the work-life balance equation is ‘family,’ specifically time spent with the kids. While several participants felt there was room for improvement here, others stated that their job and their kids were indeed getting enough time; the missing piece was actually ‘self’ time. By this the group meant time for exercise, hobbies, adult relationships, reflection, and so on. Here are some thoughts on how to strike a Work-Life-Self Balance:

Put yourself first – in the day.

For many of us, the only part of our day we can truly control is first thing in the morning. This is the time to schedule exercise, meditation, reading and reflection. Build a ritual around it. We’re big fans of Leo Babauta of Zen Habits fame, and here’s his helpful piece on How to Become an Early Riser.

Plan in small ‘Bio-breaks’ during the day.

Your body and brain naturally cycle in 90-minute intervals called ultredian rhythms, and they will force a change of activity for you, even if you haven’t overtly changed your own activity. For example, when you try to push past 90 minutes in a meeting or on a project your brain will start to wander, and your focus will falter. Your body may start to ache, asking you for a stretch, drink or change of scenery. Take advantage of this natural cycle when planning your work day, and build in little boosts for yourself every 90-minutes or so. Don’t do anything work related during these little breaks. Instead – stand up, have a stretch, take a walk down the hall, make a personal phone call, flip through a magazine, or go get a smoothie. You will then be more productive in the next work session than you would have if you’d pushed straight through. Remember – your brain will take the break regardless of whether you officially give it permission.

Establish defined working hours, and stick to them.

Decide – and communicate to your team – when you will and will not be responding to email and calls. When you’re at home, don’t turn on the computer. Scan handheld email for emergencies if you must, but don’t respond unless the company is going to shut down without your immediate intervention. When you’re at work, don’t attend to personal issues. Keep the two separate, and deal with each in turn, efficiently and effectively. Harvard has proven yet again that this ‘work less/get more done’ approach actually makes you MORE productive than the always-on lifestyle you may be living now.

Get organised.

Get better systems in place at work and at home so less time is spent on the tedious, repetitive aspects of each. Streamline, simplify, cut back, create templates and share the load. Figure out how to do everything faster and better, with less time invested. This frees up more time for everyone to focus on the top professional and personal priorities. I really should mention that we can help you with all this – just get in touch!

Love what you do.

Make sure you’re doing work you love, so it doesn’t feel like such a slog. For help with this, turn to our friends Angela and Carole at Loving Your Work.

Get some help.

Get a life coach and/or personal trainer to help you develop the habits you know will make your life better. It makes all the difference in the world to have someone keeping you accountable and pointing out the progress you’re making. We recommend Ana Scherer of NRG Coaching and Andrew Cox of Innate Fitness. Andrew’s the guy who taught us about those ultredian rhythms!

Organising Solutions is proud to be a participating organisation, and we encourage you to find ways for your company to become involved.

Here are some suggestions to get you started:

• Download Work-Life Balance: the Guide, a practical guide for small, medium and large companies in Hong Kong.
• Attend a Workshop: Adopting a Strategic Approach to Work-Life Balance
• Get the results of this year’s survey at the Breakfast Seminar October 19: The State of Work-Life Balance in Hong Kong 2009 Survey – A Summary of Research Findings
• Sign up as a Participating Organisation by completing a simple survey to register your company’s planned activities.
• Have a look at the Work-Life Balance Day Toolkit for ideas on how to promote the day in your company.

Here’s the data you needed; now put it into practice and enjoy the benefits!

To Work Better, Try Working Less

There are 4 extra bodies in the house this week, and they all want to be wherever I am, drawing me into whatever they’re doing. I am genuinely interested, but I keep wondering, “Does anybody else see the computer in front of me, or the phone I’m holding up to my ear?”

Our clients are all working this week – kicking off 2nd Quarter with much more optimism than Q1 – so nothing is slowing down on the work front. I could go into the office, but I sort of like staying in my jammies all day with everyone else.

Here’s how I’m staying focused in the midst of piano practice, Play-doh, PBJ sandwiches and paint being applied to the walls of the study where I (try to) work:

1. Hard stuff first - Whatever requires the most intense concentration is the first task of the day, before kids and clients start looking for me.
2. Clear priorities - I start my day with a gorgeously organised RTM task list – and I don’t go to bed until it’s ready for tomorrow.
3. One thing at a time - I write on a piece of paper next to me the ONE thing I am working on right now. I cross it off when I’m done. Under these circumstances it seems to take a superhuman effort to stay focused on one thing at a time, but by day’s end, the list of completed items is nice and long.
4. Batching tasks – Processing email, making calls, writing proposals, replying to email…these are all distinctly separate chunks of the day, interspersed with family stuff like cleaning the guinea pig cage, getting dinner together and watching a movie. There’s a rhythm to it; my brain likes the variety.
5. Change of scenery - I move my laptop around the house whenever I switch activities. Depending on what I’m working on and how deeply I need to concentrate, I might sit at my desk, on the sofa, or on the balcony.
6. White noise – If I sit at the kitchen island, the rain on the window drowns out the noise of the playdates and renovations. When the rain stops, sometimes I put in headphones and listen to recorded ambient noise: the sounds of a waterfall, ocean waves, or a thunderstorm. (By the way, this is a great trick for when you have to work in a coffee shop or airport lounge).
7. Support - My husband is on holiday too, and he’s great about throwing the kids in the car and making errands feel like a special outing. This is when I can call people without letting on I’m at home. I guess now my secret’s out.

Is it a picture of perfect familial and entrepreneurial bliss? Nah – I’ve shouted at everyone plenty of times…but this is what I wanted, right? Freedom, fulfillment and family. It works – as long as I stay focused!

How do you stay focused in the midst of distractions when you’re working from home?  How about in an open-plan office?

If you’re like many of our readers, you probably struggle with finding ways to make yourself available to colleagues and clients yet also get your work done so you have some time left for your life and loved ones.

Let me share a little truism with you: The less time you have, the more wisely you will use it. This is our variation of Parkinson’s Law, which states that ‘Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.’ We have all experienced the validity of this law when we pulled off a great term paper the night before it was due. There’s nothing like a looming deadline to help us tune out distractions.

Enough Chit-Chat

The law applies to our social tendencies as well, i.e. ‘Conversations expand so as to fill the time available for their completion.’ If your door is always open, your phone is always on, and your chat status is a free-for-all, there will be no end to the interruptions and distractions you are battling. Whenever somebody else is bored or stuck, they will seek out the easiest path to their own procrastination: always-available-you.

Sound familiar? Let me share some tricks to help you change this by establishing what we call ‘Com-Free Zones.’

These are chunks of time each day when you block all communications and focus on – well, whatever YOU want to. This could be a critical task or project…but it could also be going to the gym without being tethered to your boss via the Blackberry at 8 p.m.

Defined Working / Available Hours

When do you work? When are you off work? Did you know there was such a concept?! Just decide, and stick to it – at least publicly, anyway. If your hours aren’t fixed by someone else, set them for yourself – especially if you work from home. If you are a corporate professional, decide when you start and when you finish, and don’t respond to email and text messages outside of those hours.

People will catch on. Even your boss will catch on. You say you’ll lose your job if you do this? Hmmm….so how long are you going to live under that sort of pressure? 5 more years? 10 more years? And what will the payoff be for that? Just asking…

OK, here’s a cheat for you. If you occasionally chose to work ‘under the radar,’ e.g. after the kids are in bed, in the early morning or evening, don’t let everybody know about it! Queue your email messages to be sent out when your official working day begins. If you are careful and consistent about this, your workmates will start to adjust to your rhythm, and you will find your life again.

Control Outgoing Communications

“We have met the enemy and he is us.” So said Walt Kelly, and so say I about how we distract ourselves as much as the other guy.

I will put my hand up here and say I am as guilty of this as the next person. I will be working along and suddenly decide to make a call or send an email, check in with someone via chat, etc. Sometimes my communication is directly relevant to the work at hand, i.e. I need some information before I can move forward. But most of the time it’s nothing fancier than boredom or procrastination.

So when the only enemy to my productivity is actually me, my trick is to completely shut down all communications channels. That means I close (not minimise) Outlook and Skype, and I set all phone notifications to still and silent. Then I put my phone away so I don’t see it flashing. I am always amazed at how many times I try to click over to my email or reach for my phone. When neither is handy, I remember that I’m supposed to be working on something! So I make a note of what I need to do online or on the phone, then get back to work.

Even though I’m a productivity consultant, I have to play these tricks on myself. Maybe they will help you as well.

What’s Your Threshold?

I understand that you really need to be in touch with your colleagues and clients. I hope you understand that you really need time to focus and also to be not-working.

So let’s agree to a little experiment. Think realistically about how long your team, your boss, or your clients can reasonably wait for a response from you during the work day. Is it 20 minutes? 40 minutes? 2 hours?

Now try it. Test yourself and your work environment to see what happens if you are not available by phone, chat or email for that length of time. Find your threshold, commit to it, and use those golden minutes to actually get something meaningful done.

For tips on how to help people cope during your ‘extended’ absences, read Create a ‘Front Office.’

I’m referring here to things we have (sort of) committed to doing but aren’t actually doing…or are doing with stress, guilt or resentment…or are doing instead of other, more important things…or shouldn’t be doing ourselves at all.

Get the idea? It’s all that stuff. For the Covey fans amongst us, this is Quadrant 3 – (seemingly) Urgent but (actually) Not Important. We’re supposed to catapult these tasks and project from our lives, but it ain’t easy.

How about if we got a little better about not letting these things into our lives at all? How about if, on the front end, we put some better filters and controls in place?

I’m not talking about the whole be-grounded-in-your-personal-mission bit (though if you don’t have that going on, you’re bound to struggle). Today I just want to give you a few strategies to try out when your gut is telling you it’s probably too much:

When your boss asks you for another huge deliverable in a crunch week

“Wow. OK, here’s what I’m working on this week. Can you help me understand where this fits into the scheme? Is there something else that I can put on hold so I can shift my attention to this?”

(You’re not actually saying no to the request, but you will be able to say no to something else on the list – if your boss is reasonable and respectful!)

When you want to/need to do what’s being asked of you but can’t do a good job of it anytime soon

“Sure. Can we take a look at the timing for that? My week/My month is already chock-a-block, but with a little lead time I should be able to pull that off.”

(Again, you’re not saying no. You’re saying, “Yes, later.” Then be sure to do it when you say you will!)

When people keep dropping by/emailing to chat/plan/make requests

Don’t be available for the asking. Close your door if you have one. Disappear to a meeting room to get some work done. Put some headphones on. Post a funny sign announcing your ‘office hours.’ Create email-free zones in your work rhythm…and let them wait a bit.

(People will respect boundaries when you begin to establish them.)

When you care about the cause but are at your limit

“I would love to…but I just can’t.”

(This was core training for our pastor’s wife at pastor’s-wife-school. Sounds best when delivered in a U.S. Southern draaw-ul.)

When the job doesn’t require your unique fingerprint

“I bet _____ could do a good job of that/could produce a first draft of that for us/could handle the initial research. How about if I talk with him/her about kicking this off?”

(This is delegation, leadership and empowerment, all rolled into one. Good stuff.)

When the person you’re talking to would debate all your reasons for saying no

“No.”

(Then be quiet.)

When it’s only you with your to-do lists, and you realise you just can’t do it all

“What’s the worst thing that can happen if I don’t get this done on time/at all/perfectly? Can I live with that?”

(Talk it through with somebody who cares about you. Pray about it/Write a Journal about it/Meditate on it/Do a Mind Map on it until your thoughts are untangled. Make the hard choices. Then let it go.)

…Well, that was easy, wasn’t it? Yeah, right…

Remember this: every time you keep the wrong stuff from hitting your to-do list, your odds of getting the right stuff done go up big time. That feels good…good enough to try saying “No” a bit more often, perhaps.

We kicked off the meeting by having everybody write down a bullet-pointed list of what’s working well for them and what is not working so well. Then I asked everyone to share a highlight from their first list, being very specific about the tools and strategies they apply in order to achieve time management success. Here are some of the key points made:

People are finding balance by:

• Creating a schedule of ‘office hours,’ even if they work from home
• Closing the door to the office when they are not meant to be working
• Shutting down the computer (rather than simply letting it fall asleep) during ‘off hours’
• Not replying to email during non-office hours, to avoid conditioning clients to think we are always on/always available (Hint – you can queue messages to be sent at a later date or time.)
• Not carrying a Blackberry (Yes, some people are still holding out on this one!)
• Having one mobile phone for work and another for personal life
• Keeping separate personal and professional email addresses
• Hiring help at home and at work
• Developing strong family relationships and friendships, making sure to enjoy time with loved ones
• Maintaining a solid system of task and project lists
• Making a ‘To Do Today’ list with just a few key items on it
• Going easy on themselves when they’ve worked all day to stay focused on a task/project but needed to give time to other priorities instead
• Using travel time for quiet reflection, catching up on reading, making phone calls or organising lists + schedules
• Blocking time on a calendar to work on projects rather than using lists alone

I found it fascinating how we repeatedly commented on the importance of setting boundaries in our lives in order to feel good about where our time goes. This is, of course, much easier said than done.

It’s hard to set boundaries if we don’t have a clear sense of how we want to be spending our time. This means we do need to be organising our ideas and goals in order to balance them with the day-to-day work that never stops cropping up.

It’s also hard to set boundaries if we are not aware of the true limits of our time. This means we need to be making appointments with ourselves – not just with other people – so that our priorities are actually getting some air time. Putting a work block (e.g. on Tuesday from 10-1 to work on Project X) on the calendar helps you take control of your time. When someone calls to see if you can have lunch on Tuesday, you can either explain that you already have an appointment or you can look for another 3-hour block and reassign Project X so you can say yes to the lunch.

A few months ago I had a similar scenario happen in my life. My week was truly chock-a-block, and a potential client called to see if we could meet to discuss training options. As much as I wanted to meet at the time he proposed, I couldn’t rearrange anything on my schedule that week without shirking responsibilities to existing clients, disappointing family members or overdoing it physically by staying awake too late to catch up on work.

I could see all this at a glance because my week was already planned and time was blocked on my Outlook calendar (this advance planning takes less time than you may think!). So I took a deep breath and said, “I’m afraid my week is already at the ‘Legal Limit’, appointment-wise. Can we do it next week on Wednesday at 10:00?” Not only was this just fine with him, we ended up getting the contract, I didn’t lose any unnecessary sleep, and when I was standing in front of his team teaching about the importance of having – and sticking to – a weekly plan, I was able do it with integrity. Sitting there in the middle of the group, he knew it was real…and entirely possible.

I know from personal experience and observation of clients that it can be extremely difficult to establish boundaries in life. I think a lot of the trouble stems from fear of disappointing others or not having strategies for saying no effectively. More on that next time.

Until then – give it a shot. Try using the ‘Legal Limit’ explanation to say no sometime this week…and see what happens.

I work with high-powered, stressed-out people whose to-do lists are staggering, but their frustrations don’t stem from the fact that the ratio of work/life activity is not a tidy 50:50. The challenges are much deeper, running along the lines of wanting a greater sense of purpose each morning and satisfaction when the day is done. This desire applies to all their endeavors, whether they are personal or professional in nature. These folks usually love their work as much as their families and all the other activities they’re doing. It seems that when people say they’re struggling with "Work/Life Balance", they’re really looking for ways to ensure that their time and energy are being spent wisely, i.e. they want to feel they’re getting the right stuff done right.

The Lifehacker movement is a tribute to the notion that anything we’re doing can probably be done more effectively with a bit of simplifying and systemising. This applies to organising your photos or kids’ school papers as much as it does to managing your emails or running meetings at work. I like this approach; it resonates nicely with my belief that it’s not about Work vs. Life…cuz it’s ALL life! So we happen to get a paycheck for some of the things we do…but isn’t there tremendous value in trying to do it all in as focused and efficient a way as possible? The results are usually pretty worthwhile, e.g. more discretionary time in your hands, more harmonious relationships, quicker retrieval of the things you’re searching for, the respect of your colleagues and appreciation of your family, a bit more cash in your pocket, less stress, a sense of peace, etc. That may not be ‘Balance’ per se…but it’s nothing to sniff at, either!

I’ll be posting a lot more about this topic, but for now I want to share a thought-provoking article in which Keith H. Hammonds brilliantly stares down the concept of balance. Do take a few minutes to read it and let me know what you think. You’ll see yourself in here, one way or another: It’s called Balance is Bunk!