Work-Life Balance Is a Matter of Time

A new study by Italian researchers has found that Americans are less happy than they were 30 years ago, because they work longer hours and enjoy fewer relationships.

Stefano Bartolini of Siena University in Italy and two other researchers tapped three decades of data from the General Social Survey, an interview series from the University of Chicago that monitors social change.They found that while the average American paycheck had risen in the period studied, the well-being caused by higher pay was offset by a decline in the quality of relationships.

What 40-Hour Workweek?
Bartolini, who presented the findings at a June conference on "policies for happiness," told Reuters that a drop in "social capital" was behind the rise in unhappiness. "The increase in hours worked by Americans over the last 30 years has heavily affected their happiness because people who are more absorbed by work have less time and energy for relationships," Bartolini said.
Yet this isn't strictly an American phenomenon. More than 600 million people worldwide work more than 48 hours a week, according to a new report by the International Labour Organization. Workers in Peru and South Korea racked up the most overtime, with roughly half the workforce of those nations on the job more than 48 hours weekly. Some 18 percent of Americans fell into that category. The report suggests that people aren't working harder to buy McMansions and flat-screen TVs. "Attempts to reduce hours in these countries have been unsuccessful for various reasons, including the need of workers to work long hours simply to make ends meet," the report stated.
Unfocused Priorities
Long hours on the job can become a vicious cycle, says Peter Turla, a corporate consultant in Dallas and author of "Time Management Made Easy."
"We tend to work long hours because we feel overwhelmed and are trying to get caught up," he says. "By the end of the day we're really tired; it takes more time to get things done because we're tired; we go home and don't have time for personal life, so there's no time to refresh. And then we don't sleep enough. We go to work the next day tired, we're not efficient and effective, and by the end of the week we're close to burnout." One solution is to be mindful of "Parkinson's Law": Work expands to fill the time allotted to its completion, says Turla. He tells clients to imagine they're in a carpool that leaves at a particular time each day, and they have to get their act together to get a ride home. "The idea is to have a specific goal for when you're going to quit for the day," says Turla. "Otherwise, you get into a 'I can always stay late and get it done' mode of working. After a while you have to stay late to get things done because you tend to let things drag on too long, get carried away with trivia, or spend too much time with unjustified perfectionism. You get unfocused with your priority setting."

Hard Work, Small Payoff
Doug Sundheim of Clarity Consulting in New York, and co-author of "The 25 Best Time Management Tools and Techniques," agrees. "I think the biggest mistake people make is spending too much time on the wrong things," he says. "You've got someone doing a bang-up job on part of their work process, but it's not delivering on their core goals.
"For example," Sundheim continues, "I had a client who was fanatical about notating every part of the conversation in a meeting; he would stay after work to do it. But there was a lot of detail he never used."
Another time-consuming behavior among leaders, he adds, is the inability to say no. "The classic example is a client who had multiple people he was delivering work to in the organization, and no one knew how much the other people were giving him. He never said no to anyone."
Negotiation Is Key
Sundheim helped his client learn to negotiate with higher-ups on delivery dates. "A lot of people don't realize there's flexibility," he says. "You say, 'I really want to do this, but I've got a lot on my plate. Can I get it to you by Friday instead of Tuesday? If not, how about half of it by Tuesday and the rest Friday?'" Sundheim says the same goes for family commitments: Be proactive about your desires. He recalled one client who emailed a group a week before their usual off-site meeting to ask if it could begin and end an hour early so he could attend his son's championship basketball game.
"People assume they can't make requests of bosses and colleagues to fit life needs," he says. "Clients we've worked with, almost to a person, come back and say, 'I was amazed at how open my boss was to negotiating and finding a way to help make this work.'" Goals in Sight
The best time-management technique, experts say, is to start with crystal-clear goals.
Sundheim has clients brainstorm a long list of everything they're interested in having; put them into categories such as health, work, family, and financial; then circle the ones that seem most exciting. Asking why those goals are exciting can help people identify their deeper values, he says.
The next step is to look at creative ways to achieve the list. "I have clients write 'I could...' in response to that goal until they've got ten to twenty ideas down on a page," says Sundheim. "From there, it becomes a process of experimentation," he continues. "One of the biggest reasons people never get out of the starting block is they're afraid to experiment with ways to pursue their goals."
Make a List (or Two)
Once you clarify what you want, keep a written list in front of you, says Turla. "Thirty percent of people in my seminars make their to-do list in their heads," he says. "Then they tend to leave things out on their desks as a reminder to work on them. But visual clutter is clutter in mind -- there's no focus. People end up jumping from one thing to another."
Turla recommends that clients keep a list of daily tasks and a "parking lot" list, with items that have no specific deadline. "Every day, check your calendar, check your parking lot list, and build your daily action list. It's best to do at the end of the day so you have a plan for the next day," he advises.
The upside of all this effort for time-strapped workers? "Most people are actually pretty good at managing their time once they figure out what's important," says Sundheim.