I’m trying, I’m trying. I’m even trying not to try… because that is probably the real secret to achieving this elusive balance thing. Or perhaps it starts with the thought that perfection is an illusion and anything you ‘strive’ for will always be at arm’s length. Yes, it must be about expectations – those you have of yourself and of others, and those others have of you. Lower them and clarify them and you’re at the starting blocks.

Or, as my good mate Kieran Ots once told me:
a traffic controller can only land one plane at a time.

So here’s what I’m doing (or not doing as the case may be) about getting more balance in my life. I’ve failed at seeing my family much the past 2 weeks but that will change. Surely.

1. Make a plan, tell people and encourage them to do the same
This is part value-sharing and part simple good communication.

2. Then commit and stick. Others will work around you
We live in a world where so many of our conventions are conventions because… well, they’re our conventions. Break them because you think the world will be a better place and people will understand and possibly join you for the ride. Don’t be too inflexible… but clear boundaries are good.

3. Don’t over-think
Clarity is often really obvious if you turn off the noise, get out of the office, get out of the institution and believe that clarity is simple. And know when a deep-dive is truly necessary. So often, near enough is actually good enough. I’m not telling you to be lazy or slack but don’t confuse quantity of thinking for quality of thinking. From memory, this was Hamlet’s problem.

4. Don’t over-prepare
Life a little unprepared is fun. Leave some room for the raw-ness of the experience in your personal and professional realms. It rocks.

5. Don’t over-present
Since the start of the year, I’ve really been focusing on ‘show, don’t tell’ as a mantra. I’ve done a lot of ‘presentations’ without a presentation. I simply get online in front of a room and show people stuff. This works because it’s not didactic, it leaves room for the people you’re talking with to observe and internalise. It’s also really fun  to do and different for everyone.

6. Me time must have
I have 2 bits of me-time. I walk to work for 35 minutes each way and try to go to the gym 4-5 times per week for 45 minutes. Without exception, my best, favourite thinking happens in these timeslots. I look forward to them because I feel energised and excited physically and mentally.

7. Stay paper- and file-thin
Perhaps my role makes this one a luxury but I don’t have any folders or file holder things in my office. I don’t want them. I don’t want paper for the sake of it. There’s usually only a handful of ideas in every presentation. That’s all I need. Also, thanks to Ots and watching my old boss Scott Davis, my working space is recycled A3 paper bulldog-clipped to a bit of cardboard. That’s all I need and all I want now.

8. Divide and conquer
The world can go on without you and sometimes it’s best if it did. So let it happen and see what happens. The team will be stronger for it and you’ll get more done. If you’re worried, simply explain how you think and create the odd one-page template that people can use to emulate it… and stand back.

9. Communicate less but better
Reply only if you need to. If someone emails me with a statement, I’ll likely delete rather than reply for the sake of it. I also delete persistent sales people who put me in a weekly follow-up checklist. And, yes, I do communicate a lot via social media but that’s not work for me. That’s a hobby. It’s like tuning in to a TV show… but it’s other people.

10. Delete more than file
OK so this may also be a luxury of my role, but I don’t care about a paper trail. I start with the idea that I’ll delete emails and files, not keep them. They have to fight for that right.

What do you do?
Balance is so imperfect. Share your ideas.

Photo courtesy Piero Sierra.

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Somewhere on this site, Kate Richardson wrote a comment. And that comment made me want to ask her to write something. So, here it is. A guest post.

As soon as Mark asked me to write a post on living a values-based life I started thinking about yellow cars.

What I mean is, you know when you decide to buy a yellow car and suddenly there are yellow cars everywhere, where there were none before? You can’’t turn a corner without bumping into a shiny lemony automobile.

A values-based life became my yellow car. And before long, I was acting in a generally self-flagellating manner, citing values violations and issuing self-infringements.

In the end I tore them up (metaphorically speaking).

Because the notion of living a values-based life has many dimensions (too many for one blog post). Our values are not just defined by who we are, but by our purpose, context, those around us, and of course, the filter of our humanity.

And as those values change and shift and grow over time, living a life that’s true looks more like a story than an edict. For me, different values come in and out of focus.

So I thought I’’d share two stories from different times when people that have challenged me to think long and hard about this subject.

Having purpose

In 2003, I chucked in my job and headed off to Cambodia in search of volunteer work. You know, all noble and lofty like. I felt so good when I told people what I was doing. In truth, it was a very humbling experience and the person who benefited most from the experience was me.

But I had the privilege to work with one of the most impressive, talented and fierce women you are ever likely to come across. She was unnervingly principled. She became a vegetarian at 8, could be found on soap boxes in Western Sydney at 12, and had read Marx at 16. She was married, but still called herself a lesbian. Within the space of a month, I saw two people (one from the World Bank, and the other from Oxfam) go into her office and emerge quite literally crestfallen. She had made such an impression on them with her case, that they went back to their offices immediately and quit because they couldn’’t face working in jobs that contravened their values.

In living a values-based life, she has achieved incredible things: quite literally empowering a grassroots movement of women across the country. And I don’t think I’’ll ever meet anyone so damn uncompromising. Or ever be so inspired to literally join the charge.

Being yourself

The second experience was during my 9 month stint at the Sydney Leadership program in 2007 (now called Social Leadership Australia). The program espouses a new model of leadership, exploring amongst other things what it means to be purposeful.

For me, it prompted a lot of thought about whether I was failing at this values thing, or whether my values had changed. For one thing, during my twenties (including a fairly unattractive non-bra wearing phase which thankfully didn’’t last too long) I was utterly opposed to working in the corporate sector. When I came back from Cambodia I was as an even more avid-liberal-evangelist-overbearing-social-capitalist, prone to delivering didactic speeches at dinner parties.

Anyways, during this time, I met a lot of amazing people, some of whom were on the course, and others who were speakers generous enough to share their experiences of different social issues.

A story from one of the speakers struck a chord with me. She was a firm believer in being the same person in every facet of your life and told a story to this effect from her time in banking.

Every day she’d drive in and park near a guy from her floor. She’d see him arrive in a yellow convertible: top down, sleeves rolled, breeze in his hair, music blaring. By the time he’d driven around the carpark and pulled into his space, the top was up, the sleeves buttoned, the hair flat and the music off. With newly drooped shoulders, he’d shuffle off towards the lift. So she started leaving anonymous notes on his windscreen that said ‘stop leaving your personality in the car’. After a while he realised it was her. They had lunch, she encouraged him to be himself, noting that his staff would be a lot happier for it, and he and they were was relieved.

So what’s the moral of this story?

If you rent a yellow car in Cambodia put the top down.

And in thinking about a values-based life, remember that it’s a never-ending story.

/ End

Many thanks to Kate for sharing her thoughts on living a values-based life. You can find her on Twitter: @katerichardson. She blogs www.stickywood.blogspot.com.

Photo courtesy Rouge Rouge.

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