Do you struggle to find a work-life balance? You’re not the only one. But have you ever thought why the term coins balance between work and life as if they are opposites?

I think the concept of work-life balance has three fundamental flaws.

First of all it creates an unhealthy challenge. It creates a feeling of having work on one side and life on the other. They compete for your time, attention, and energy. The dark side of “balance” is being constantly afraid of falling. To keep balance one needs to stay concentrated all the time. That’s alone takes a lot of mental energy.

Secondly it generalizes life and emphasizes work. Let’s think about different domains in life. Those include health, relationships, family, finances, hobbies, spirituality, entertainments, and others. Work-life balance concept highlights work as a distinct unit while all other life domains are merged together. The concept sets you to have a thorough view on work. The “life” part however is a puzzle by itself and the concept gives you no answer to it. In reality work is one of life’s areas. It’s a part of the puzzle. Not a distinct unit.

Lastly, work is set to win your attention. It has an unfair advantages. It’s the simplest part to handle and for many it is also resources provider. Regular job has simple and strict rules (when to come, when to leave, and what to do). Most of other domains don’t. The money it provides is a vital part of our lives. At the end of the day many people build their lives around work (or should I say job) while neglecting other areas.

It feels like a solo with an accompaniment (work with other areas of life). They all are on the stage. Yet one of them is the main character while the others are supporters.

I’d like to think about life as an orchestra concert. It’s a joint effort of different instruments creating a harmonious sound. From composition to composition dominant instruments may change. Yet all other ones play a significant role in every piece. Together they create harmony.

Our life is never ending orchestra concert. Our areas of life are the instruments in this orchestra. Dominant areas of life change depending on current season of life. When they are in harmony, we live a happy and fulfilled life. What could be better?

4 ingredients of harmonious concert

Instruments (life domains)

Everyone is unique. Thus I expect areas of life change from person to person.

Those life domains can be grouped into three categories:

• Yourself. Focused solely on areas about you and relation to yourself. These are spiritual, intellectual, physical areas.
• Relations. Domains centered on you in relation to others. These include family, friendship, social.
• Value Creation. Domains creating physical values in your life like work, hobbies, finance.

Feel free to use this as a starting point. See what’s important to you. Add more domains or remove whatever is not relevant. Make your own list.

Don’t think about social proof. Don’t limit yourself to social standards or expectations.

This is a private list and private evaluation. You’re not going to share it publicly. Maybe you will show it to a spouse or your closest friend. But no more.

Score and parts (vision and life plan)

Score for orchestra defines how instruments merge together creating a full picture for director. Parts for each instrument guide orchestra players.

Similarly vision and life plan define your priorities and chart the course.

What would make you happy and fulfilled in each life area? How they would be combined to create a harmonious life?

These are hard questions to answer. Be honest and bold.

You may dislike the answers you find. They may require big changes in your life. Changes you would like to avoid to stay in comfort zone. But comfort zone and happy life don’t go together until you have harmony.

You may need to go through a tough season of life on your way to happiness and harmonious life. You may need to take hard decisions.

Remember that it is always better to drive your life by yourself instead of reacting to circumstances.

If you’re single you’re good to go to next step.

However if you have a family or in deep relationship, you better do one more thing. Discuss and potentially align your life plan with your spouse. You have your values and plan. Your spouse has hers or his. It would be a real problem if you’re pulling in opposite directions. Sooner or later this will create a major crisis.

You can do this in open manner by sharing and discussing your life plan. You can take a spy approach by talking about different aspects of your life plan without disclosing your reason. I would advocate for the first option. But situations and circumstances differ a lot from couple to couple.

Composition (2-year seasons)

As life goes we have different seasons.

Season of college differs a lot from season of school. Season of early career building differs a lot from college season. Season of raising a toddler differs a lot from any season before it. And so on.

Some seasons appear at your front door as an unwanted guest. We have to acknowledge them and make our plan within constraints season sets. Unfortunately these are mostly negative. Health issues always surprise us. Loosing a job always happens when we’re financially weak. These kind of things completely change life in one day. They interrupt our current season of life immediately creating a new one. The one where harmony is impossible. Your move should be closing this season of life as soon as possible and get back to harmonious life.

Others we define by ourself. Deciding to double down on career creates a season of career. Deciding to have a child creates a season of baby followed by a season of toddler. Deciding to move to a different city creates a season of exploration.

Season of life defines composition which you play and the instruments heading in it. All domains of life are interconnected. To keep harmony in the season you need to make sure every domain gets sufficient amount of attention.

A season of life has either a big goal to achieve or a big problem to solve.

Big changes take long periods. Definitely longer than a year. Oftentimes 4 or 6 years.

When looking back at my life I see lots of occasions when 2 years was a period of major milestones and accomplishments.

It took me two years to become good at programming after I joined university. It took me two years to propel my career after university. It took me two years to do a major career restart a decade later. It took me almost two years to overcome mental crisis after leaving homeland because of war.

I find 2-year season a perfect spot. It’s long enough to make a difference. Yet it’s short enough to keep the feeling of close and tangible result.

Intermission (reflect and plan next season)

Why they do an intermission in concerts? Because people need a pause, a suspension to return to reality. People need to switch from active to passive state and rest. The receiving capacity of the brain needs to be restored.

You need the same between your deliberate seasons of life.

You need to pause. You need to have a period of slow lifestyle. Your brain needs to get free cycles. It needs to stop thinking in a paradigm of current season.

Back in the days I was leading a software development team in a pretty complex domain. We worked in two-week intervals. Last day of each interval was dedicated to prepare work for upcoming interval. At this day nobody was supposed to do any active work. The brain should be switched to preparation mode. Preparing to the work and doing the work need two completely different states of mind.

Guess what was happening when people were mixing active work into preparation day. The preparation always became neglected. Next two weeks always became a disaster.

That’s when I realized the importance of separating preparation from any active work.

That’s exactly why you need intermission between seasons.

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