Owner: Are We Balanced Yet (work life balance blog) URL:www.arewebalancedyet.com Join Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2008 09:02:06 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Two professionals. Two busy careers. Add two wonderful kids. Subtract sleep. What is this "work-life balance" thing anyway? Site statistics:Click here
Speech Recognition Software As A Productivity Tool 2008-03-08 08:01:50 I first started using speech-recognition software because of worsening carpal-tunnel symptoms. I’m still a pretty mediocre user. The “power users” really know all of the commands, can operate the computer without barely touching the mouse or keyboard, and have “trained” the software such that they seem to be realizing 99% recognition accuracy. I have no idea how to measure accuracy as a percentage—but pulling a number out of my rear, I’d say I’m achieving accuracy more in the 70-80% range. That’s not bad though, especially considering I’m terribly lazy about “training” the software—or for that matter learning it. As an example, I skipped all of the training on the software that my company had lined up for me. Nevertheless, I am still seeing a lot of promise quite Read more:Speech
, Recognition
, Software
, Productivity
Losing Second Gear 2008-03-05 07:10:53 Though much of my life, I’ve always had an extra gear available to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if this were the case with many professionals—many of whom are or have been hungry, ambitious, young people at one point or another. It worked generally like this: whenever I got extra busy, or was trying to do something extra to get ahead, or for that matter had fallen behind, I would just stay up late to work harder. All nighters were never routine—but they were an always-ready part of my toolbox. Late nighters were no big deal—barely a blip on the radar. When we were anticipating the birth of our first child, I was pretty sure my extra gear was going to come in handy—and was going to be in ample use. And it has been. It hasn’t just been adding the usual demands of being a par Read more:Second
Sweeeet—So This is Work-Life Balance 2008-03-05 07:10:39 At one point, I had adopted one of many attempted strategies on balancing my work schedule with seeing my kids. On nights where I already had to be out late because of a work-related or professional event—like a dinner meeting with a client or an evening board meeting—I would go back to my office after the event and work until the wee hours. I figured that I already had to miss seeing my kids before they went to bed, so why not get some more work in to help me stay on top of things? On one such night, I got home around 3:00 a.m. When I walked in the door, I was surprised to find the lights on. And there was my wife, working away on her laptop at the kitchen table. And I thought to myself: “Sweeeet. So this is work-life balance.” So far, my best preparation for becoming a parent Read more:Balance
Friends Without Kids 2008-03-05 07:07:42 I have some vague memory of my pre-parenting life; and I remember thinking that my friends disappeared after they had kids. Not completely. I’d see them here and again. But I wouldn’t see them very much, and when I did, it always seemed like it was for a fairly short time. Now I’m the disappearing friend. Our kids are pretty young; and we really don’t go out much these days. And when we do socialize, it is much more frequently with other parents than our friends without kids. So why? Why have we disappeared to our friends without kids? None of this excuses our disappearing act, but these are some of the reasons: I’m sorry to admit that—just like the stereotypes of parents—our ability to converse socially about subjects other than our kids has plummeted off the Read more:Friends
Working At Home As A Change Of Pace 2008-03-04 04:39:23 Kids need routine. I’ve read it, heard it, or had it transmitted to me by telepathy about a million times. But I think adults need breaks from routine. Today, I ended up working at home. Usually, when I work at home, I have specifically scheduled it and planned for it. I might have a work meeting closer to my house than my office; I might have to pick up the kids early. And I am usually working at the same breakneck pace that I have at the office, trying to squeeze in as much work and as many e-mails as possible before heading off to the next engagement. This time was different. I had scheduled an early-morning meeting at our house with a contractor doing some work there— fully expecting to get to work a bit late, but not very late. Well, that meeting quickly ballooned; and it turne Read more:Change
Going Paperless—First Steps 2008-03-01 08:51:53 Since we had kids, one place where we have really fallen apart, in my estimation (and mostly due to my fault), is our personal organization of paper. We have mostly been using a paper filing system. In the room that we are calling our study or our office, between the computer desk and in other small add-on piece, there are about three small filing drawers. And that’s where we’ve been keeping our tax documents, bank statements, insurance records, receipts or records relating to home repairs, and so on. We were doing okay in keeping this up—until the kids, of course. Since then, we and especially I just have the intent to keep up our filing. This manifests itself in my keeping piles of papers in various corners of our study that all fall in the category, “To Be Filed.” One probl Read more:Going
, First
Slave to the Smartphone? 2008-02-27 08:50:57 On the Monday of Presidents Day Weekend, we were in Toys "R" Us with the kids, shopping for beach and sand toys. Several of my clients apparently were not taking the day off; and I found that I responded to approximately three e-mails in between the train table, a lawnmower that was also a bubble machine, and several books that our kids wanted to read right there in the store, on my lap. Are smartphones good or evil? I read an interesting post on The Work It, Mom! Blog titled, “Can you prevent technology from ruining your life?” It discusses trying to draw lines around the use of technology—and trying to head off a situation where you are always working or are spending time with your spouse or kids without really being present. The Work/Life Balancing Act blog talks about how smart Read more:Slave
, Smartphone
The Parenting Guilt 2008-02-26 10:54:58 Should my older child know the alphabet better by now? For some Freudian reason or some other psychological baggage, I see part of my role as a parent as trying to make my children’s lot in life better than my own—starting with making their childhood better than my own. And it's not exactly as if I was particularly wanting during my own childhood. There were certainly generational and cultural obstacles in the communication and mutual understanding between my parents and me, but I expect most every child that has ever been born has tried to complain of such issues at one time or another. I had two parents that loved me (though perhaps they did not express it in the way that I would have scripted); I had clothes on my back and plenty of food to eat; and to tell you the truth, I had mor Read more:Parenting
Having It All—Who’s Responsible For Tricking Us? 2008-03-11 08:25:41 In this past Sunday’s Parade magazine, Tina Fey was quoted regarding her own work-life balancing act: I think my generation has been slightly tricked in that you’re really encouraged to try to have it all. . . . The life of the working parent is constantly saying, ‘This is impossible,’ and than you just keep doing it. I think my wife’s and my ages are in the general ballpark of Tina Fey’s—and I have to agree. Someone must have tricked me, because I can’t otherwise fathom both why I still think I can have it all and why I keep trying to. Read more:Having
, Responsible
Spring Forward, Fall Down 2008-03-10 11:54:45 Turning the clock ahead for daylight savings time is rough enough when you are perpetually sleep-deprived. It’s worse when you have young kids. It’s 9:26 a.m. as I write this, and I’ve barely gotten onto the train I take to work. The change in time threw the kids off. They took longer to fall asleep last night, and they woke up very late. Add that to the usual histrionics—one of them insisted on wearing a short-sleeved shirt today, and %$#@ if I just couldn’t find one—and I quickly bid hasta la vista to my grand plans to get an early start today. Admittedly, this was part of our plan—hatched with great care on the spur of the moment—to ease our kids into daylight savings time. We let them go to bed on the late side last night, after which the older one procrastinated furth Read more:Spring
, Forward
The Lost Weekends 2008-03-17 06:18:47 One of the greatest difficulties I find in trying to achieve work-life balance is: the lost weekends.For many reasons, I should be referring to them as the “gift weekends,” the “blessed weekends,” or the “found weekends.” We spend every moment of them with our kids, which means we spend more time playing, laughing, and being silly than we ever did (or could have) in our weekends before kids.But as far as handling the demands of work, they are the “lost weekends”:The weekends used to be a time where I could consistently put in several extra hours— and as much as 10 or 20 hours when things were really hopping.The weekends used to be a time where I could consistently get some rest. Actual physical rest like sleep, and equally or more importantly, mental and emotional rest—
About This Blog 2008-03-17 02:51:45 What is this "work-life balance" thing anyway? I'm in my late 30s. My wife and I are both professionals with demanding jobs. Mine consistently asks for 60+ hours a week--with the busy weeks being quite a bit worse. Our two boys are young (born in '04 and '06). They make us laugh all the time--and also push us to our limits. Put all the consultant speak aside--we're just looking for a tip to help get us through today!Contact:blogmaster (at) arewebalancedyet.com
Convertible Tablet PCs As A Tool For Productivity And Organization 2008-03-19 04:15:46 About a year ago, I bought a convertible tablet PC as part of my plan to be able to work anywhere, which was part of my plan to become more efficient, which was part of my plan to get more work-life balance. Well, you know what they say about the best-laid plans. But I’ve nevertheless become quite fond of my laptop. A tablet PC is kind of a laptop computer that lays flat. You use a special pen on it, both to act like a mouse and to write. It tries to recognize your handwriting—or for more precision, you can tap out letters on an on-screen keyboard. A convertible tablet is a laptop computer on which the screen can rotate around and lay flat, on top of the keyboard, for use as a tablet. Or it can be used with the screen in the usual place, using the keyboard. I bought a Toshiba Porteg Read more:Convertible
, Tablet
, Productivity
, Organization
And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt 2008-03-20 07:28:38 Not that I like to get too much of my information from advertising, but this is what I read in an ad for Sprint in this month's (print) Money magazine: "America is #1 in hours worked, #7 in productivity." Now the point of the ad is that we can work "smarter." But I'm still pausing on the first part: #1 in hours worked? I don't know if that's overall or per capita, but I'm not excited to see it either way. There are lots of things for which I'd like to see a #1 ranking, but that's not one of them.Is this our problem overall in the United States as far as work-life balance goes? Read more:Shirt
Announcing the Carnival of Work Life Balance 2008-03-22 16:46:53 CALLING ALL BLOGGERS!Work-life balance... what is it, who has it, and how do we manage to stay sane while trying to get it or pretending to have it? According to Wikipedia’s entry on “work-life balance”: The expression "work-life balance" was first used in 1986 in the United States (although had been used in the United Kingdom from the late 1970s by organisations such as New Ways to Work and the Working Mother's Association) to help explain the unhealthy life choices that many people were making; they were choosing to neglect other important area of their lives such as family, friends, and hobbies in favor of work-related chores and goals. Unhealthy? Sounds bad. Now what better word to associate with the “unhealthiness,” quandaries, and craziness of “work-life balance” t Read more:Carnival
, Balance
No Balance This Week! 2008-03-28 08:16:48 So the lack of new posts this week has been somewhat intentional, as I wanted the announcement of the Carnival of Work Life Balance
to stay "on top" for a while as we continue to try to publicize it. The rest of the reasons are my complete lack of balance this past week, with work tipping, taking over, and mangling the scales. Thank you to my family and especially my spouse for pretending still to recognize who I am when I show my face around the house.The good news is that we have received a lot of submissions for the first Carnival of Work Life Balance. The scheduled date is now set for April 7. Please do spread the word or get your submissions in, if you are interested. Thanks!
Blogs and Beauty! 2008-03-31 00:42:25 Carnival of Family Life: The Beauty
and Personal Grooming blog hosted the March 24, 2008 edition of the Carnival of Family Life. Our post on, "Friends Without Kids," appears under "Family Humour." Be sure to check out the whole carnival! Read more:Blogs
Work-Life Balance And Waistlines 2008-04-02 08:01:52 I had been warned about some of the weight gain that comes with becoming a parent. People told me about the sympathy weight I would gain during my wife’s pregnancies. And freed from any guilt or restraint by these premonitions, I ate heartily with the idea of keeping my wife company during her pregnancies. I am, after all, a devoted husband. I had been warned about the difficulty of the whole work-life balance thing and the effect it would have on whatever supposed exercise schedule I pretended to have. Well, let’s not call it “exercise.” Let’s call it any kind of physical activity that involves more than sitting on my rear end. Whatever you call it, there was weight gain to come out of that too. But I had no warning about how my kids’ eating habits would affect my weight. M Read more:Balance
Work-Life Balance Solved? The Importance Of Being Saintly. 2008-04-04 04:29:38 So I think I’ve figured out the whole work-life balance thing. It’s pretty simple actually. At least one person in the couple must be a saint. Not so much in the religious sense. The (relatively) secular definition of saint in dictionary.com is: “a person of great holiness, virtue, or benevolence.” That definition’ll do. At least one person in the couple must be of such great virtue and benevolence that one would call that person a saint. My wife is a saint. I’ve had at least a couple-week period of being ten-feet underwater at work, and I don’t swim very well at that depth. Things kept coming up, often without a ton of notice, and I haven’t really been getting home at a great time. I haven’t had dinner with my wife and kids since…. hmmm. Well, I can’t rememb Read more:Balance
Bigfoot, the Lochness Monster, and Work-Life Balance: Legends or Hoaxes? (Carnival of Work-Life Balance Numero Uno) 2008-04-07 06:29:10 News agencies were still scrambling to keep pace, as story after story broke. Was it finally going to be revealed? Is Bigfoot
real? Is the Lochness Monster
real? Is work-life balance real? · Karrine, the Organized Mom, was one of the first on the scene, asking the question, Balance
- is it a fairy tale?, at Organized Families.· Debra Moorhead went against the grain by stating the reality of work-life balance is already established in: Life Balance, posted at Debra Moorhead.com. · On the other hand, Milo Paulo milo G. Riano suggests it doesn’t matter if work-life balance is real in: Work Life Balance is Overrated. · And GP addresses the myth of the Jewish superwoman in Innkeeper as Superwoman? posted at Innstyle Montana- Come on Inn. After the v Read more:Legends
, Carnival
Work-Life Balance Lessons From “Jon & Kate Plus 8”? 2008-04-09 08:59:20 We may be coming a little late to the party, but my wife just started watching Jon & Kate Plus 8. She loves it. It was immediately entered into our TiVo Season Pass, and she wants me to watch it. I have slowly started to realize the show is not just a show—it’s a bit of a phenomenon. It has its own website, a Wikipedia entry, and not one but two official TV websites—one on Discovery and one on TLC. When I did a Google search on “jon and kate plus 8”—which incidentally it suggested for me after I had gotten about as far as typing “jon”—its first page stated it was listing: “Results 1-10 of about 97,600.” So let’s take a closer look. If any of you are not familiar with the show, the “About” pages on both official TV websites describe the show as: “With tw Read more:Balance
, Lessons
Discussion Topics for Parents Groups at Work? 2008-04-14 04:27:29 So I’ve been going to a “working parents group” at my company, with most of the group being relatively new parents. I’d guess most folks’ kids are under 5 or 6. This group is pretty new, so I’d be interested to hear about other folks’ experiences with similar groups at your workplaces, what you are talking about, and what you find the most productive use of your time. Here are some of the topics that we have started discussing or that are on our list: babysitting cooperatives;options for emergency childcare;school options (evaluating public-school districts and private schools);estate planning (and in particular, how to consider a guardian for your kids);life insurance; andfinancial planning. If you have any blog or website resources that discuss one or more Read more:Discussion
, Parents
, Groups
Carnival of Work Life Balance #2 2008-04-28 05:58:25 Welcome to the 2nd Carnival
of Work Life Balance
! For more information about the Carnival, please check out the Carnival Home Page. In the meantime, please enjoy these great posts relating to work life balance. Editor’s Picks. · Cathy Ley presents Little Mochi Breaks Daddy’s Heart posted at Tips for Moms & Baby Websites. Editor: Mochi broke mine too—a quick story mentioning how baby bonding so strongly with Mommy can affect Daddy. · Steve Munroe presents Email Hygene posted at Lifestyle Innovation, saying, “An article written for my lifestyle innovation blog, detailing novel techniques for handling email overload.” · Deb Serani presents “Positive Direction”: May The Force Be With You posted at Dr. Deb, saying, “This post highlights Posi
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