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Culture Duck Tales
July/August 2003 Something’s Got to Give Who among us hasn’t wished for more hours in the day? Of course it’s a wish in vain. The problem is not the number of hours in the day, but how we spend them. If you feel like your summer has flown by, like juggling work and family is next to impossible, like you’ll never cross off all the items on your to-do list, you’re in good company. These issues plague most everyone around you! So the question is not, “How can I get everything done and still have time to spare?” The real question is: “How can I gain more balance in my life and know that tasks to relinquish and what tasks to focus on?”
Sharpen Your Edge Consider this age-old story of two woodcutters. One of them worked hard all day, stopping only for a few minutes to eat lunch. The other man took several breaks, relaxing on a bench and even taking a nap after lunch. Which one of them had chopped more wood by the end of the day? The one who took breaks. Surprised? So was the woodcutter who worked for several hours without stopping. “I don’t understand,” he said to his friend. “Every time I looked over, you were sitting down, yet you cut more wood than I did.” “Yes,” his companion replied. “But did you also notice that while I was sitting down, I was also sharpening my ax?” Working nonstop does not necessarily mean working efficiently. To accomplish more, you sometimes need to stop what you’re doing to relax, reevaluate, and revise. Relaxing allows your mind to focus better; reevaluating helps you find ways to improve; and revising translates to working smarter—with a sharper edge. So Long, Friends Author Joseph Conrad wrote, “In work is the chance to find yourself.” Many of us, however, don’t typically think of work that way. Isn’t work what keeps us from doing what we really want to do? What keeps us from splashing around with the other DucksŪ and soaring through the sky? Not really. It’s actually by working that we reach many of our goals and dreams. The key is to think of work as part of our success, not as drudgery. Here’s how:
Working Hard—and Loving It One of the tragedies of Americans’ quest to balance work and family is the slow demise of friendships. In an effort to achieve balance among the job, the spouse, and kids, friendships have become just too time consuming to maintain. The loss of friends is not a healthy thing, say sociologists. According to one study, people with more friends have fewer health problems, recover more quickly from illness, and have less stress in their lives. Another study of 10,000 seniors indicated that loners were two times as likely to die from all causes than people with close friendships. More and more people, however, are gradually accepting the loss of friendships. Getting together with friends for dinner can take weeks, sometimes months, of planning for busy working couples. And even then, someone often begs off because they’re “too busy.” Sociologists say we may be in luck, however, as baby boomers enter their retirement years. Friendships tend to come and go with age. While middle age people tend to have the least number of friends, seniors tend to redevelop friendships as they enter their golden years. For those who can’t wait until retirement, e-mail is helping keep some friendships alive, although not on a one-to-one level. Marrying Work and Family In their never-ending struggle to juggle work and family, some working parents are tempted just to throw in the towel. But work/life experts say not so fast. If working parents can live by the following rules, the balancing game may seem less like a tightrope act:
Time to Prioritize Lost time is never found again,” jazz pianist Thelonius Monk once said. While you can’t retrieve lost time, you can schedule your days to include the things that are truly important to you—whether it’s family, community, hobbies, exercise, or spiritual growth. We all have hectic days, but being busy is not an acceptable excuse for neglecting important personal matters. To find time for the things most important to you, you need to treat your personal goals as seriously as you do your other goals. Most of us have no problem showing up for business meetings or doctor appointments. But when it comes to making time for what really matters, we too often come up empty-handed. One solution is to schedule time each day for the people and activities most important to you. Schedule “appointments” in your daily planner to take your children out for ice cream or to take a leisurely walk with your spouse or just to sit quietly and read a good book. Sure, you may have to put other activities on hold, but the rewards will be worth it. Most people looking back on their lives never say, “Boy, I wish I had put in more hours at the office or I wish I’d attended more meetings.” What they might say, however, is “I wish I had spent more time with my spouse and children.” Don’t let that be one of your wishes; spend time now in ways that will enrich both you and your loved ones. |
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