Just wanted to highlight a very important advice on the article:
You do not reach [work life] balance by reducing work. You reach balance by finding a passion that draws you out of work.
You do not reach [work life] balance by reducing work. You reach balance by finding a passion that draws you out of work.
He says he's from outside CA.
If I'm not directly competing and stealing clients I think that chances are low that they will try to claim ownership.
In the U.S., while I think it's true that people tend to work closer to 50 hours, we pay lip service to the "40 hour work week".
In our industry where it tends to be an option for us, "find a new job" might make sense.
Or find something you like to do with your kids.
Regularly scheduled hobbies are the easiest to pull off. If you just try to find a spare hour, you never will.
Being upfront about it like that got me a lot of credit somehow. It was never a problem.
Also, when they were around 12, I was a partner in a consulting firm. So I could make my own hours. That definitely helped out during those years.
That said, I've definitely worked at companies that want to have their cake (in by 8:30 or 9) and eat it to (leave no earlier than 5:30-6 with expectations of frequent late nights and weekends with 2 weeks vacation). I've simply lost all tolerance for that, and always wonder how others manage it in stricter environments.
The first few months there wasn't time for any of that anyway and then as I began to have time I took out the few items that I really wanted to use, but all the while I didn't have a constant pile of fun things around the house making me feel bad because I didn't have time to play with them.
Depending on the circumstances you will have different amounts of time, but most importantly is realizing that you will have less time and taking steps to adjust to your new role.
The next phase, when they are a little older, you can share your hobbies with them. Kids love to do fun things like hiking and camping and building stuff and playing games. That is awesome.
So I guess from my perspective, I would say your passions and hobbies and interests can be molded by having children, and become something you share and develop together as a family. From an outside perspective, we probably devote too much time to this sport (I would have thought so a few years ago), but it's something we all enjoy and have found ways to participate in together.
Not really; a side effect of finding a passion that draws you out of work is that you reduce work but simply reducing work is not the same thing.
But many self improvement advisors across a host of problems from overeating to addiction agree that the way to kick a habit is to crowd it out of your life. You don't have time to eat a cheesecake because you're going for a run or to a volunteer event or to the park with your kids.