How work-life balance improved my career

The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece titled “Why Work-Life Balance Will Keep You Mediocre.” Certainly a headline designed to draw ire from many readers, myself included.

The author advocates “ruthlessly” optimizing your time, from missing important events with loved ones to declining social events. The goal? In his case, he built a company worth $20 million and set himself up with financial freedom for the rest of his life.

My gut reaction was, “That’s no way to live a life.” There was a time, in my early twenties, when I poured all of my energy and time into my job. I wore the badge of long hours and unlimited availability, replying to emails long into the evening as I worked on projects.

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Then I had kids. I began working remotely. In no way did this keep me “mediocre.” In fact, I’d argue that work-life balance improved my career.

Learning to focus my impact

If you think you have 100 hours to work each week, you’ll undoubtedly find ways to fill 100 hours.

When I became a parent, my “extra” time disappeared. I couldn’t reliably work outside of business hours. Even my work within business hours changed, since small children are frequently sick or school is closed for various holidays.

I became brutally efficient with my time. I learned to think of my work in terms of the results it produced, not the hours I put in. I advocated for better apps and tools at the company that could help the entire team do more with less time. I taught myself how to use automation tools to keep tasks humming in the background.

“Work smarter, not harder” became my mantra. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice time with my family or a career I’d worked hard to build. I had to figure out how to get more done with less effort so I could enjoy a balance between work and life outside of work.

Learning adaptability and empathy

Being a parent taught me to be more adaptable. Kids don’t wait for your schedule. They don’t conform to your ideal workday. You have to pivot quickly to Plan B when Plan A fails.

I became a manager early in my career, and I’m now embarrassed to say that I was a very rigid thinker. I couldn’t understand when “life got in the way of work.” I assumed that other people were bad at managing their time.

Having kids made me more empathetic. I saw how life outside of work—even for reasons unrelated to children—happened, and deserved compassion.

I wasn’t mediocre by being more adaptable and empathetic. I became more human.

The entire team benefited from flexibility. As a manager, I let my team know that I trusted them to get work done, without micromanaging oversight. And if something unexpected came up, we would adjust.

Leading by example

At work, people take cues from other employees, especially those senior to them. If a company claims to be flexible but your manager sends Slack messages while on vacation, it’s a pretty good indicator that you shouldn’t expect any work-life balance.

Or how about the job that provides zero coverage when you take time off? You return to a pile of work and spend the next week working extra hours to catch up. Not exactly restful if you’re “punished” for taking time off with more work.

The more I embraced work-life balance, the more my team followed suit. If my kids were sick (or I was sick), I took the day off. I took fully unplugged vacations during the year and encouraged others to do the same. We set up internal systems so that anyone taking time off had adequate coverage.

Most importantly, my kids have seen how much I prioritize work-life balance. I’m there to pick them up from after-school activities. They know that “being sick” means “resting and recovering,” not pushing through.

When my son was little, someone asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” He responded, “I want to work from home.” It was a proud moment for me, because I knew that my efforts to model work-life balance were paying off.

Do I have a multimillion-dollar business, like the author of “Why Work-Life Balance Will Keep You Mediocre”? No. But his priorities are just that: his priorities—not a universal truth.

Pursuing work-life balance is a worthwhile career goal. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

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