In his book, On Writing, Stephen King wrote: “… put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room.  Life isn’t a support-system for art.  It’s the other way around”.

Sometimes I feel the same way about work, whether I’m doing something artistic or not.

But before we explore “working to live” versus “living to work”, it’s important to define both ‘work’ and ‘life’.

For the purposes of this article, when I talk about work, I’m talking about the thing you do that allows you to make money - whether you love it or not.  Life, on the other hand, are the other activities you do that don’t necessarily make any/much money.

It’s possible that you spend your time doing things that seem like they belong to both categories since dichotomies aren’t as simple as we make them out to be.  For example, I love working on fiction even if it doesn’t usually make me money, but when I get paid for a fictional piece, is that work?  If something isn’t clear cut, don’t force yourself to categorize it.  We’re only discussing the balance between the things we regularly do to ensure financial survival, and the other not-so-profitable things we need to do with our time such as hobbies, time with family, or taking care of your health.  Face it - even if you love your work as much as I love mine, there are other things in life that you have to pay attention to.

So how do we pay attention to them?

“Working to live”

This phrase means that your work is just a factor in your life.  It is not the only thing that defines you, and you spend (or want to spend) your time on other things as well.  Your main reasons for working may include one or more of the following:

• To earn money from your work so you can survive
• To feel a sense of fulfillment because of the work you do
• To feel happier in life because you’re working on your passion

Symptoms of this lifestyle:

• When office hours are over, you generally put work out of your mind and don’t allow your colleagues to contact you about something work-related when you’re at home.
• You love your work, and if you never needed money again for the rest of your life, you’d do your work for free.
• Yo make time for hobbies, passion projects, and your other priorities in life.

“Living to work”

Living to work means that you prioritize your work so much over other things in your life.  This could be rephrased as living for work.  When you live to work, your main reasons to work can be one of the following:

• To do all it takes to get higher up on the corporate ladder - just because it’s there.
• To make a lot of money, and prioritize that goal over other things.
• To spend most of your time working because what else are you going to do?

Symptoms of the “living to work” lifestyle:

• You schedule your life and other activities based on your work schedule
• You would pick your Blackberry over your spouse or family (I’m surprised that 35% of people surveyed said they would do this).
• You neglect your health because you’re too focused on working.

Making the decision, finding the balance

A better work/life balance was the driving force behind my 9-hour workweek experiment. It’s true that I love my work, but there are other aspects of my life that I want to explore.  I couldn’t do that if I was working for almost all of my waking hours.  I wanted to make more decisions that allowed me to lean more towards the “work to live” group.

Working to live versus living to work is not a decision you make once and expect that it will be carried out consistently from the moment you’ve decided.  It is something you decide everyday, perhaps several times, and every situation you face each time will be different.

In what situations do you find yourself working to live?  When do you find yourself living to work?

Photo Credit: Image from Tim Meijer  from stock.xchng

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An article from Scientific American got my attention today, especially since I found myself sick several times last month. The article, entitled “The Danger of Stress”, revealed studies showing how long-term stress can be harmful to the body.

It might seem counterintuitive, but… stress makes our immune systems less effective because it actually elicits an immune response itself. [It] causes the body to release pro-inflammatory cytokines, immune factors that initiate responses against infections. When the body produces these cytokines over long periods of time—for instance, as a result of chronic stress—all sorts of bad things can happen. Not only does it hamper our body’s ability to fight infection and heal wounds, but chronic inflammation also increases our risk of heart disease, osteoporosis, and autoimmune diseases including type 2 diabetes.
Source: SciAm.com

Apparently, regular stress also increases one’s risk for allergies, and if you find that you’ve had an allergic response while in a stressful situation (the day before a big presentation, for instance), your allergic reaction will get worse within the next few days.

To read the rest of the article over at Scientific American, click here.

Do you notice the effects of stress on your body?  What do you do to relieve yourself of stress?

Photo Credit: Image from Charlie Balch  from stock.xchng

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In a recent Wired article entitled “Dressing for Success Means Looking Like Hell“, it was suggested that a relaxed dress code at work was often a symptom of working too hard.  From the article:

Before sitting down to write this, I e-mailed a bunch of friends in various professions and asked them about their work wear. The men overwhelmingly responded with an affinity for the aforementioned stiff shirts from Brooks Brothers, as well as half-brags about their disheveled appearances at the office. “I wind up wearing my lunch more often than not” one wrote [subtext: because I eat at my desk every day]. “I wear pleated-front pants because they’re more comfortable,” another admitted [subtext: I eat at my desk every day—and every night].
Source: Wired Magazine, “Dressing for Success Means Looking Like Hell” by Ashley Muldoon

This reminds me that last year, Google employee Jason Warner mentioned in the “Brazen Careerist” blog that the average Google employee’s attire tends to be laid back, with most of them wearing jeans and t-shirts to work.  It’s no surprise, since Susan Wojcicki, Google’s VP of Product Management actually said that the company’s official dress code was “You must wear clothes”.  From a traditional perspective, it looks like Google encourages slacking off, but anyone who is familiar with the company knows how hard their employees actually work.

With the rise of start-ups from Generations X and Y (such as Facebook), it seems like dressing down is becoming a trend for most workplaces.  It’s not such a big surprise that this has happened, since formal business attire tends to consume so much time and money - time we’d rather spend working, and money we’d rather save because of the current economic outlook.

How about you, what do you think of this trend? Do you pay attention to what you wear at work?  What are your company’s policies and attitudes regarding office clothes?

Photo Credit: Image from Manu M  from stock.xchng

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The book I’m reviewing this week is Dan Clements and Tara Gignac’s “Escape 101: Sabbaticals Made Simple” (aff).  As the title suggests, this is a book about the mental processes, thoughts, and ideas involved in planning a sabbatical.  When I first came across this book, I was worried that I’d run into another book with the same old ideas on lifestyle design that I’ve read about elsewhere.  However, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this wasn’t the case.  Although I’ve read several books and blogs on the subject, I was glad to learn some new ideas from this book.

Here’s a quick walkthrough of some of the two (2) main parts of the book:

Part 1: The 4 Secrets For Getting Away From It All

The first thing discussed in the book is finding the “why” behind your sabbatical.  It also discusses the different personality types that go on a sabbatical and suggests why each type may be driven to it.  You’ll be able to explore the motivations behind your sabbatical and what you can do to fuel these motivations to get yourself started.

Clements also points out that one of the big hurdles that most people face when planning a sabbatical is the lack of belief.  Basically, this chapter explores and helps you counteract the reasons behind skepticism and disbelief, including lack of experience and going against the status quo.

Personally, the section on belief resonated with me.  I think belief is something that generally makes or breaks any attempt to create change - whether it’s personal, social, financial, or political.  It’s easy and comforting to create disbelief, mostly because it’s scary to face the idea of failure when we know that success is possible.  This is why we avoid believing in the first place.

Another important chapter in the first part is the one about commitment.  Here, Clements redefines commitment into the following:

Commitment: an investment which, if not followed through on, generates a perceived emotional, mental or physical loss or pain.

Basically, commitment is an action, not just a decision.  This chapter also helps you tackle the different commitments you’ll need to take for the sabbatical, including financial, social, and logistical commitments.

Part 2: Planning It

If the previous section was about getting rid of the excuses, visualizing, and belief, the second part is more about the planning process itself. Clements tackles the differences between planning a vacation and planning a sabbatical.

Basically, this section goes through planning your finances, from saving up to your sabbatical to building a sabbatical income.  Clements also discusses how he and his wife tackled the finances, so there’s a breakdown of a real-life example in the book.

Other important chapters in this section include escaping your job, taking a sabbatical with children, leaving your business, and even some chapters on getting the most out of your sabbatical as well as how to deal with your return.

Overall comments:  I really learned much more than I expected from this book.  It covers all the processes involved in planning and executing a sabbatical extensively that it can serve as a great starting point for those who are considering their own sabbaticals.

However, I’m afraid that Escape 101, because it’s more about the planning process and theories rather than a straightforward list of steps, will inspire people for a week after reading it, but they’d start letting the mental blocks get in their way again.  I’ve found that some personality types need the steps, or else they’ll claim that the book isn’t for them or that the ideas don’t work, when really, it’s these people who are failing to make the ideas work for them.

This is why taking the three steps outlined in the chapter “The Fool-proof Three-step Escape Plan” is crucial to making a sabbatical happen.  These steps are simple ones which you can take while you’re reading that chapter, and once you’va taken them ,the idea of taking a sabbatical will become more real to you.

Good points:

• A simple, easy to read introduction to lifestyle design.
• One of the things I loved about this book was the emphasis on relationships (whether with your spouse, children, friends, or colleagues) and how sabbaticals affect them.  I don’t think this angle has been discussed with such depth in other similar books.
• It covers the entire pre-planning and planning process so extensively that there’s no room for excuses.
• Unlike other books on eascapism, the ideas are applicable, regardless of how you feel about your job, how successful you are, or how much money you have.  You don’t necessarily have to start your own business.

Bad points:

• As I mentioned earlier, since this book deals with mostly internal processes, some readers might just read it, get inspired, and forget to take any action and let their negative thoughts get in the way.  But this is a risk I see with most lifestyle design and motivational books in the first place.  A good workaround would be to improve and broaden the resources available on the website.

Who this book is for:  Ideally, this book is for professionals or families who have been idly thinking about getting away for a few months to a year, whether to travel or to pursue other activities (such as writing a book, volunteering, or going after a forgotten passion).  Unlike “The 4 Hour Workweek”, which I’ve reviewed before, Escape 101 doesn’t assume that you hate your job or life.  Its ideas are still relevant whether you love your job or not.

Although young students longing to backpack around Europe can benefit from some of the ideas, this book really isn’t for them.  People who are looking to permanently leave their career and current life path can also benefit from this book, but they’ll need much more resources than this.

If you’re interested in learning more about this book, click here (this is an affiliate link, so if you choose to buy the book through this I’ll get some pocket change).  You can even download an excerpt.

Has anyone else read this book?  If so, what did you think about it?

Image used with permission  from Dan Clements from Escape 101

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In most industrial cultures, when a parent asks their child what they want to study in college, their desired field of study is measured against money.  Say “I want to study Fine Arts!” and your parent tells you to take up architecture instead.  Say “I want to become a novelist!” and people say it’s wiser to study journalism.  They say this as if journalists and architects are all about making money, and as if artists are always starving.

Is there really a dichotomy of doing what you love vs. working for money?

I don’t think so.  I think we are raised to believe in this false dichotomy.

To get to a more realistic perspective, we’ll have to look halfway between the scam artist who yells “Make money while you sleep!” and the pragmatist who preaches that working hard is the only way to earn a decent living.  On my personal quest to finding this midpoint, I’ve learned the following:

• You can make money from doing what you love, so long as the driving force is the love of work itself and not the money.  Giving your work this kind of purity will prevent you from feeling enslaved by your hobby or passion, which is a risk if you try to make money from the things you love doing.
• It’s not an either/or choice.  Especially in a world or industry where teleworking is possible.  If you can’t earn money doing what you love, you can spend half of your time doing what you love and spend the rest of your time working for pay - until you strike a desired balance between both.
• Working smart helps a lot.  Be results-oriented vs being time-oriented.  It’s not about working for5 hours straight, it’s about what you do with those 5 hours.  This is especially important if, for example, by some unchangeable and insurmountable circumstances you are forced into a job you dislike. You need to have the maximum output for minimum input of time and effort - this will get you to spend less time on your job and more time on things you enjoy.

Were you ever faced with the dichotomy of doing what you love vs. working for pay?  How did you deal with it?

Photo Credit: Image from Ayhan Yildiz  from stock.xchng

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One of my high school friends, let’s call her Jane, wanted to meet up with another friend named Eric.  Here’s a little backgrounder on their careers:

Jane’s Career:

• B.A. in English, so she naturally went into the publishing world after graduation.
• After a few years working for a magazine, she decided to join the marketing team of a business process outsourcing (BPO) company.  But she also does some freelance writing on the side.
• Now that she’s leaving that BPO company, she wants to try a variety of options that may not have to do with marketing or publications (probably in the IT world).

Eric’s Career:

• B.S. in Biology, but moved on to get his Master’s Degree in Finance.
• Has worked in banks since then, and is now VP of some department in one of the biggest banks in the country.

Eric, after hearing that Jane left the marketing world, scolded her along the lines of “What do you want to do with your life? You don’t know what you want!”

I felt that in this case, Eric was judging Jane too harshly.   Especially since Eric’s job had such poor work-life balance, he didn’t know Jane as well as he used to.

But who’s on the right track, Jane and her diverse career choices or Eric’s calculated steps?

A Straight Career Path

A straight career path usually means that straight from graduation, you work for a company in a job that is relevant to the degree you recently acquired.  From there, you go higher up the corporate ladder, and even if you leave one company for another, you are still somehow going up the ladder based on your job description and salary.  Almost everything in your CV ties in neatly.

Advantages:

• It’s very easy to see what your specialties are.
• You can clearly position yourself as the master and expert of one field.
• Everytime you make career choices, it’s based on where the choice will lead.

Disadvantages:

• You limit yourself from finding golden opportunities in other fields and industries.
• You might not have as much creativity with designing your lifestyle and finding alternate activities to do with your time.
• A straight career path is often based on the false assumption that your personality, needs, situation, and desires won’t change (but they will).

A Varied Career Path

This career path tends to be more instinctive (or even impulsive in some cases) and leads you in unexpected turns.  You may have gotten an MBA, but now you’re working on your second novel!  If asked what you will be doing 10 years from now, your plans are dynamic - you have some ideas, but you’re not entirely sure.  When reading your CV, a stranger will see that you’ve been working at a variety of positions among several industries and businesses.

Advantages:

• Unlimited sources of learning and applying what you’ve learned.  Like the example of the MBA’ed novelist, he’d be able to apply his business and marketing knowhow to promote his books.
• You can easily adapt to changes in the business and economic world, giving you a wider range of opportunities throughout your career.
• Your make your career choices mostly because you believe that these choices have some value in your life, whether they bring you up a corporate ladder or not.

Disadvantages:

• To the untrained eye, you will look disloyal and non-committal.
• It’s hard to explain answers to the question “What do you do?”  People often expect a one word answer, not “I’m a freelance writer on the side, but I’m also a marketer, although right now I just got a job as a programmer.”
• You might not get enough comparative (when compared to the straight career path people) experience in one field to be considered as an expert.

Now what?

We’re living in exciting times where the word “work” and “workplace” are being so drastically redefined.  Work doesn’t have to stem from what you studied in college and it doesn’t have to be done in weekdays during 9am-5pm.  The workplace doesn’t have to be a cubicle in a tall metropolitan building.

At the same time, if you’re comfortable with the 9-to-5 setup and a pre-designed career path, there’s a place for you in the business world as well.  In fact, you’re still part of the majority.

In other words…

A straight and narrow career path is not necessarily better than a varied path, and vice-versa.  There’s only what’s better for you.

What’s your career path like?  Is it straight or varied?  Or do you strike a balance between both?

Image credit: Photo by Reynaldo Ismael Morel from stock.xchng

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Readers, readers, readers. No one answered the question I asked last time, which was “What is your dream job?” Don’t worry - I’m taking on the blame myself. After all, what a painfully common, question, right? Still, if you feel the need to answer it, you can do so at the comments section of that post.

So, this week, I’m asking you all:

What is your definition of a good work-life balance? Have you attained it? Will you never attain it? Can you give any examples of friends or relatives who have achieved this or who are having trouble achieving it?

Share your answers with us in the comments.

Photo Credit: Image by Celine Roque from Blue Rabbit Media

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In the previous installment of this series, I talked about how I defined work and modified my e-mail habits as my first two-steps to a 9-hour workweek.

Step 3: I applied the 80-20 rule.

I’ve talked about the 80-20 rule (or Pareto Principle) in the past, so I won’t define it here. I’ll just discuss how I applied it.

I made a list of my current paying jobs (blogging) and listed them as how much each paid per hour, including notes on how much I enjoyed these jobs. Here’s what my list looked like:

1. Job A - $50/hr - love this job
2. Job B - $30/hr - like this job
3. Job C - $10/hr - indifferent
4. Job D - $8/hr - love this job
5. and so on…

Of course, there’s some personal projects I do that don’t pay much (if at all), but they’re not what I was evaluating here. I was evaluating what I defined as my “paying work”.

Read more

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“The 4 Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferriss has been all over the blogosphere and mainstream media for the past year. The title sounds like a scam or a gimmick, and you half-expect that the official website will be a lengthy one-page sales letter that starts with “Dear Friend”. Thankfully, the reality is different: the official blog has an active community and has some additional ideas that aren’t discussed at length in the book.

The book captivated me, gave me a lot of dangerous ideas, and made me want to try it on my own. In this series of blog posts called “How I Got to the 9-Hour Workweek”, I tell the story of how I took some of the ideas from the book, used whatever applied, and created my own rules. If you’re a fan of the book or simply curious about it, you might be interested in my personal story. So here’s how I got to the 9-hour workweek:

Step 1: I figured out what my work was supposed to be.

This means the work that I love. I love writing, but I don’t like the marketing, client support, and other stuff that comes with it. At the same time, I don’t love all my writing jobs. I had to list the top writing gigs that I loved (regardless of pay) and I defined those as my work. The rest were nonessentials that I had to deal with indirectly.

Step 2: I became ruthless with my email.

What was the leading time sinker of my workweek? Email. It’s a time sinker because I knew that I didn’t have to spend hours a day on it, but that’s exactly what I did. I already wrote about how I conquered my email, so if you want to read about it, click here. Here are some changes I’ve made to the system since then:

The Inbox Zero approach. This is Merlin Mann’s baby (you know, that guy from 43 Folders). To learn more about inbox zero, click here.

Using Gmail as my sole interface. This only applies to 2 major email accounts that I use for people who are trying to contact me personally - not my company or my business partner, etc. The company-related emails are still handled by a virtual assistant.

Why Gmail? Because the search feature is kickass, and it’s web-based. I had to reformat my computer two-times recently, and restoring the Outlook stuff was a bit stressful. I realized that I needed email that I can access from anywhere at anytime and still have the same, comfortable interface. Switching between Outlook and my webmail (whenever I wasn’t at my home computer) drove me nuts.

Minimized rules. My email rules are now for archiving purposes only - like I label all PayPal notices as “paypal” if I want to read all the PayPal payments I received for a certain time period. Plus, some rules direct non-essential emails straight to the archive instead of my inbox, so I won’t feel pressured to read them ASAP.

These were the first steps I took.  Of course, there’s more.

Watch out for part 2 of this series, where I’ll talk about how I applied the 80/20 principle and used outsourcing.

 Photo Credit: Image by Rendy Aryanto  and lusi from sxc.hu

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I found this interesting online quiz about job burnout (click here for the quiz).  My own result was 24 points, which means ” Little sign of burnout here, unless some factors are particularly severe”.  Take the quiz and see if you have any signs of job burnout.  Share your results  with us in the comments.

What do you think contributes to job burnout?

Photo Credit: Image by Bob Smith from sxc.hu