Johannesburg, 08 May 2008 - Staying “connected”, be it through your cellphone, Blackberry or email has, for some, become a 24-hour obsession. And while lighthearted nicknames like “crackberry” have been coined to describe this obsessive behaviour, what happens when you become addicted to connectivity?
World-renowned author and leadership guru, Dr Stephen R Covey, who will be in Cape Town next month to present a Leadership Greatness workshop, shares some insight into how to achieve a work / life balance without compromising one over the other.
The all day event, organised by FranklinCovey Southern Africa and Life College, will take place at the Grandwest Arena on 2 June.
A good work / life balance, according to Covey, is when your actions and priorities are aligned in a way that is taking care of what is really important to you. “This is a very personal thing and it is different for everyone.”
For the average person, being able to multi-task is a priority. Be it juggling work, studying, starting a company, married life or raising kids, individuals end up with a huge list of things that fracture their attention.
“This isn’t wrong in any way – for the most part it’s admirable – but there is an old saying: to a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. One often loses perspective of what is important; “soon, the things in life that are really important are in the same list as everything else and the only tasks that get done are the ones that have become urgent, but often aren’t very important,” Covey says.
One of the main implications of being out of balance is that you neglect other areas of your life. “Often, when you ask people what they feel is most important in their life, the things they really want to accomplish, it’s the things that take time and long-term investment. By the time these things become urgent, it’s often too late to affect them.”
Relationships are an excellent example, “if you only invest in your relationship when it becomes urgent, it is often too late. Rather invest in your relationship when it is important, but not urgent.” This might mean turning off your computer and cellphone when you get home and really investing in your loved ones.
Another example is your health; “If you don’t eat well or exercise because you don’t think you have the time or because it isn’t urgent, you could find yourself in a life-risking situation later.” When a health issue becomes urgent, it stops everything else. But if you take the time daily to eat well and exercise in some form, you take care of your body so that you lessen your chances of ill health.
“You have to decide what is important. What do you really want to be and do with your life?” Being able to say “no” to the urgent and unimportant gives you time for things such as professional development activities.
“You are enabled to go the second mile in your efforts to help solve problems; you carve out time to mentor and be mentored, to look for other opportunities; you are able to anticipate needs long before they come up because you are not so urgency-addicted.”
Consider the things that you value most and allow those to serve as the foundation; “Then commit to consistently re-evaluating your current priorities, given your current circumstances and based on what you have identified as your core values. It takes courage, but remember not to trade in what you want most, for what you want now.”