Honesty is the best policy.
When we shared our work-from-home tips at the beginning of the pandemic, we forgot to mention that the cost of all this added flexibility was at the expense of the “work/life balance” myth.
So yes, our breakfast conversations often include questions about RFPs, emails, and project tasks alongside the eggs and debates on who’s picking up Aidan from band practice.
It’s only possible (for us at least) to keep the chaos moving in a positive direction by making time to create something tangible we can fall back on to stay aligned and supportive of each other’s goals.
It always starts here… at the end.
Every December we take/make/honor the time needed to reflect and dream. Like the trained facilitators we are, we get guidance and set boundaries to focus our thinking with some helpful prompts.
The tool we’ve used for the last few years is The Year Compass.
Be warned, it takes time and effort, but it is well worth the investment. And as we can all agree, you’re definitely worth the investment.
We work on it off and on for a week or two–together and individually. By the time we get to the final prompts, we’ve found some common ground around what we must do and what we’d like to do. Now we’ve got our waypoint to come back to throughout the year when things get crazy.
Give it a shot and let us know how it goes for you.
Or, if you have another system that’s worked for you, we’d love to hear what you do. Maybe we’ll give yours a go this year.
Who knows, maybe your system will help me send at least one email update to folks in 2023 🙂
Balance. Here’s to finding just a smidge more in 2023.
