The district directors have been challenged by Mike Lambur to blog about work-life balance, pretty ironic as I sit in my office at 6:15 am catching up once again. I put in a lot of hours and I make that choice for several reasons – mainly, I don’t want to disappoint you, the folks that I serve, and I sincerely want to enable you to do your jobs well – to the extent this is mine to assist, 2) I don’t want to fall behind and I want to be a “good” employee and be valued as such by my supervisor, and 3) I think it is simply part of who I am to put in extra hours. My parents taught me to arrive at work at least 10 minutes early and actually be working when my shift began. My mom always said, “Once a task is begun, never stop until it’s done, be it great or be it small, do it well or not at all!” So with this work ethic ingrained in me, I confess to always having put in a lot of time on jobs and I can also say that mostly I have loved it.
The “rub” came in my work/life balance when my child was borne. Twelve hour days were not practical or doable any more. I can remember sitting in bed with my son and reading stories to lull him to sleep, but it was always mom that feel asleep and the little guy saying, “read more, read more.” Life had to change. Being married to an equally “hard worker” who put in many hours each week between his professional job and farming, it was a struggle and required constant communication to juggle the tasks of parenting. As I cut back the hours that I was actually at the work place to 40, I began to receive negative feedback – “What’s happened to Cyndi? Why isn’t she around anymore? She doesn’t work like she used to.” This was a very difficult pill to swallow because I was still giving my job a strong 40 hours weekly.
However, my priorities had changed and I had to do some things differently to accommodate my home life and my work. One of the most difficult challenges for me was to give over work to someone else. Although I had competent and capable volunteers, they did not quite do it the way I wanted the task done – and I struggled with that. I had to prioritize and take an unbiased look at what tasks needed to be done – which ones had to stay with me and what could I give up or turn over to a volunteer. I also had to pare down the “stuff” around me and purge to a manageable level.
Over time, I was able to find a groove that I called balance. Probably always over 40 hours a week, but I lost the guilt of not managing every detail and found a voice to say “no” to requests that did not strongly align with my professional or personal goals. My son is 19 now and there have been some things that I have missed because of work, but most of the time I was there. I think the most difficult priority has been to find time for myself between home and work. My advice to you would be to intentionally schedule time to care for yourself, as I believe this benefits both your home and work life – that was the one thing that I never did.
As you grow in your work and as you go through the changes of life, you will continually evaluate work load and personal commitments. I have been a state employee for most of my working career – 32 years now and I still feel a strong commitment to serve the taxpayers and give them the best I have to give for the dollars I receive from them in salary and benefits. With that in mind, you can never get back the missed ball games, awards programs, or family dinners, so I encourage you to continually evaluate where you need to be. Make your calendar your friend; sit down and plan time off – we are blessed with a generous leave system, so make sure you are using it. Schedule time for personal things on your work/life calendar to ensure that the important items don’t get forgotten or swept away by the load of daily chores.
Please share any advice you have on how you have achieved work/life balance, and/or challenges you face in making this balance work…
Cyndi Marston
Thank you Cyndi, for your comments. I like my work helping people with their questions and I struggle with this. Making a 40 week happen is pretty hard. I can’t even use young children at home as an excuse. Weekends in summer are my reward and I try to make sure to leave town often enough to feel like I’ve been to new places and gotten a fresh viewpoint. Also i read a lot and use that for stimulation of the gray matter.
Thank you, Cyndi. I don’t have any insight to share here, but it’s very helpful to hear your story and to learn from your experiences.
Thank you VERY much for sharing this!
Thank you, Cyndi. I appreciate your candidness and sincerity. Much appreciated!
Timely topic. One thing that I have found to be helpful when it comes to work-life-balance is “planning” — blocking out holidays and vacation on my calendar early in the new year. I can remember telling a new agent who was scheduling their work by the day rather than looking at their work by the month. They learned quickly to see work and personal life from a broader paint brush, that old calendar was tossed in the trash. So, make sure you take time for yourself and family this summer.
I personally feel that the work/life balancing point is different for different individuals. It is important to strive to manage your responsibilities, rather than be managed by them. The latter case is when folks find themselves suffering burnout and sometimes feeling that the only escape is to resign. Maintaining that balance, however, requires constant attention and effort, particularly during times when everything is coming at you at once. Without investing the effort, things can quickly get out of balance once again. I think Cyndi is absolutely correct that, in dedicating ourselves to work and home responsibilities, we do often do not take time for ourselves. This was my MO for many years; take care of everyone’s needs first, and get to mine when there was time, and as we all know, there is never enough time. That approach eventually left me with declining health and a sense of frustration at being controlled by “the job.” I got a wake-up call from the doctor, made some lifestyle changes, found balance and arguably became more effective in my work along the way. I still take care of everyone else’s needs first, but I have become much better at creatively carving out 30 minutes or so a day for myself. “Anonymous” points out another challenge, particularly for service oriented people, which is the fact that there is always more that can be done, and more clients to reach. I think one of the keys here is to give yourself permission that, if you just can’t reach that one additional client all things considered, it is OK. I know that statement is unconventional, and some may disagree…if so, blog on!
Thank you so much for your comments! I hope others will share how they manage their time between work and home.
Thank you for posting about this – definitely a huge struggle for me! We are about to have our second child and it has caused a lot of excitement accompanied with a lot anxiety in our family because of my job. I rely on my husband a great deal, especially when we have night programs, trainings from early am to late pm, not to mention the “normal” 40+ hours a week, etc etc! He works full time, we both have an hour commute, and we farm together as well. He is learning to adjust but does not handle the stress well! I love what I do and like you Cyndi, my parents shared their almost “over the top’ work ethic with me – it’s almost like an illness! However, I know what it is like to have your parents miss ball games or school events because of work so I try to be very conscious of missing the important moments in my child’s (soon to be children) life. Also, add to that being a relatively new agent with the pressure to prove yourself to your community and within Extension and I feel like balance becomes an even bigger challenge. I certainly recognize that I am not the only one in Extension who struggles with this so it is beneficial to hear how others adjust! Thank you again!
Cyndi,
I too hope that young agents will heed this great advice. Learning to balance early on in this career can make the difference between loving it or leaving it. We cannot control everything that comes our way but we need to look out for those things that we can–like scheduling time for ourselves and to be with our families. A now-retired agent once shared with me that he would probably would change one thing in his career if he were able to go back and do it again…………..he would not have been so heavily involved in activities that took him away from home for extended periods of time while his children were little and growing up.
Thanks for your honesty and words of wisdom.
Great comments Cyndi! This is something we all struggle with, be it with spouses/significant others, children, pets, family, etc. I started with VCE when my son was only 3 months old, so he knows no different than Mommy having to be away from home sometimes. For my daughter, it has been much more difficult. I can’t take away all of the weekends and overnight trips that I may have to do, however, I ensure that when I leave the office, I leave my work behind. Other than the occasional email reply or shopping trip, I strive to not to bring my work home. This has really helped since my husband has a job where he has to do a lot of work at home.
It is a continuous struggle that we work through every day!
Many nice insights here – and I would like to leave my 1.5 cents (reduced due to taxes) worth. One thing that I have told new agents I have either mentored or worked closely with, is this: The time management issue is both your friend, and your enemy. The same thing that makes this job (agent) very challenging, is also the thing that can be most rewarding. You will certainly miss some of your children’s events, and be gone overnight, and on weekends, etc, but you will also have some flexibility to “make” many events that people without this flexibility would surely miss. I started this job when my 3 children were 6 yrs old and younger. They couldn’t participate in many 4-H activities at first, but once they could, I got them involved in many things, and that helped give us lots of additional time together (not to mention the opportunities 4-H provided for them, and they are still involved – but that is another blog!). For the new agent, a piece of advice I give is that a person has to experience an entire year cycle in this position to gain a better feeling for “spreading out the workload”. There are many events that are mandatory for us, some others that we “should attend” or be a part of, and then there is a group of events that we have to balance and pick and choose from. In order to get the best perspective on all these, an agent really needs to experience a year in the field. But I would also suggest that the new agent surround himself with a few close agent mentors who can advise them on what should be done, attended, etc, and which ones can be balanced. And this is why we have the Mentor/Mentee system, which is very effective in helping to coach new agents during this challenging first year or so with work/life balance. And no doubt, as many have said, the work/life balance is an on-going struggle, but with experience, one gets better and better at managing it.
I really appreciate all the comments from my colleagues on this topic. The balancing is definitely different for each individual and finding what works for you is a must. I love extension because you are always being advised to “make time for family” as it is easy to immerse yourself within your program area. I am taking notes from my colleagues on this matter and thank you once again for sharing your thoughts!
I am so thankful to have a job that I enjoy, supportive colleagues, and the benefits and flexibility that we enjoy as agents. It is easy to become consumed with your work, put in a lot of extra hours and take work home with you. This is where the challenge of work/life balance comes in. I am a wife, mother of two (which includes a son who has been battling life threatening illnesses for 13 years), and caregiver for my aging parents. Some days I manage to “balance” quite well and other days I am completely overwhelmed.
I try very hard to do my job to the best of my ability and “be all things to all people”. That is a self-imposed challenge and carries with it tremendous physical, mental and emotional burdens and obvious work/life imbalance. I have employed the following strategies to assist with my balancing act. (1) I try to take an hour or two each month to have lunch with my children (during the work week). These are our special lunch dates. (2) I also try to “disconnect” when I am off. (Another challenge for me.) Smart phones and iPADS are great, but they cannot take the place of quality time spent with those you love in conversation, play, and togetherness. If nothing else, I make sure to power off for at least a few hours and give my family my undivided attention. (3) I try to hold a lunch hour each month to fellowship with a friend or colleague.
Special thanks to Cyndi and everyone else who shared. It helps to know that we are all in this together.
Thank you so very much for sharing. These are all good ideas for creating some personal and family time! It is comforting to know that all of us have similar struggles with the life work balance and can share with one another ways to work through this and other important challenges as we grow in our careers and in life.
Here’s an article on this topic that I thought was really interesting!
http://qz.com/173703/your-work-life-balance-hangs-in-these-four-quadrants/