The Work It, Mom! Blog
with Nataly
Hi, I am Nataly and I am the co-founder of Work It, Mom!
I write the daily Work It, Mom! Blog where I talk about issues affecting working moms, goings on in our Work It, Mom! community, new site features, updates,and contests. I also share my own juggle between work and family and love to see members jump in with comments. Come and visit often!
Nataly's profile on Work It, Mom!
Over the weekend I was catching up on my reading and found a great column by Marci Alboher about a different way to look at the whole work-life balance issue. If you enjoy your work and are passionate about what you do, then perhaps working on weekends or at night sometimes does not mean that you don’t have balance in your life. If you blur the lines between work and life by choice it might not be such a bad thing after all.
This really resonated with me. For years when I worked at an office-type job that I didn’t really enjoy I resented having to work on weekends. I wanted to fill my time outside of my work with hobbies or time with family and friends, and I felt that any intrusion of work into my free time was a violation of my work-life balance. Since launching Work It, Mom! I’ve never had a weekend when I didn’t work on something but I don’t mind it. I love what I do, I’ve finally found work that IS my passion and the lines between work and life have blurred. (Admittedly, starting a company involves so much work that I have no choice but to work on weekends.)
Do you blur the lines between work and life or do you prefer to keep the two very separate? Does this depend on how much you like your job? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
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I think it might depend somewhat on what your job entails. Even if I loved my job more than anything the world, there’s not much blurring because the bulk of what I do has to occur during typical business hours.
Now, mental intrusion into free time is different.
Elizabeth | September 19th, 2007 at 10:00 am
I’m with Elizabeth here. I think if you’re in a position where you’re working for someone else, and/or in a more conventional work environment, it’s easier to keep things separate, no matter how much you love what you do. (She’s totally on-target about the “mental intrusion” though, too.)
Florinda | September 19th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Elizabeth and Florinda,
Those are great points - some moms don’t have the ability to blur work and life.
However, I don’t think blurring is limited to people who work for themselves. When I worked in a consulting company and then a venture company I often did work from home at night and on weekends. The difference was that I HATED it and felt like it was an intrusion.
Nataly | September 19th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
I go through spurts with my current job. When I’m working on certain projects, I don’t mind doing research at night or on the weekends because I love the topic, client, etc. My boss never *asks* me to work on stuff from home but there are specific projects that I can easily overlook the extra manhours.
mom2amara | September 19th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
It’s 1:09 AM and I am about to tear myself away from a fantastic night with my feed reader. I “met” 4 or 5 brilliant “new-to-me” bloggers this evening and produced a wildly varied twitterstream http://www.twitter.com/pistachio of shared posts & news items, chat with friends, links to moving experiences. I am a blogger and I consult on business presentations and on social media. Was I working this evening? Playing? Learning? ALL of the above. Maybe just, living?
I also had time today to breastfeed my 10 month old all day, roll around and play with my 2 year old, take both for a long walk, go out in the middle of the day, speak with a client, plan a business trip and interact with my virtual assistant. All 3 meals were relaxing and at home with my family.
There are definitely edges that still take working out. I don’t always manage deadlines as aggressively as I would like, and sometimes my focus leaves something to be desired. But I have never been more enthusiastic or excited about what I do, even though I work TONS of evenings and weekends…
All this to say, YES! and Great post!
Laura Athavale Fitton | September 19th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
I definitely think if you enjoy what you’re doing (workwise), you don’t mind when it blurs into your home life. But when you have to take time away from your limited family time to do one more assignment for The Man, boy, that’s just no fun at all.
Susan at Working Moms Against Guilt
http://www.workingmomsagainstguilt.com
Susan | September 20th, 2007 at 4:33 am
I’m a blurrer, no doubt. Right now we’re in the back yard and in between emails with clients and potential babysitters, I yelling encouragement to my two little monkeys and reminding them not to push each other. I’m with them while they play, they’re with me while I work and it goes on like this every day. There are some things for work that I can only do at night when their in bed or if someone else is watching them (the voicing part) but I don’t mind. I love what I do and I love my family and at this rate they are learning to be part of this little business.
Mandy | September 20th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
I prefer to call it an integration of work and home. I work just as Mandy described, around my kids and they play around me. To me calling it balancing home and work means something has to give for the other to win. You know the old good v’s evil. Well working from home is a choice… my choice and I choose to integrate!
Kylie Short | September 20th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
I recently discovered your blog (via google alerts) and love it! In fact, I recently listed it it in a post ” More great women bloggers” on one of my blogs Virtual Woman’s Day (http://www.virtualwomansday.com).
Wishing you all the best and continued success.
Heidi Richards, Founder & CE) - The WECAI Networkâ„¢ - http://www.wecai.org
Heidi Richards | September 23rd, 2007 at 8:02 am
[...] And it’s not just business modes and methods, it’s our interaction with careers that have changed as well. According to the Labor Department, “the average person born in the later years of the baby boom held 10.5 jobs from age 18 to 40.†In 2006, the most recent year for which there are statistics, 54 million Americans, or 40 percent of the work force, left their jobs. If people aren’t changing jobs they’re likely to be specializing in different areas, or acquiring additional vocations– no one, it seems has only one job, every one is a lawyer/writer/life coach. The slash has become an indispensable mark of puncutation. Along with Americans changing jobs, or adding to the jobs they already have, there is (for better or for worse) the inevitable blurring of work and home life. [...]
Work It, Mom! | A Community for Professional Moms | October 1st, 2007 at 12:07 am
Almost inevitable to blur if you have your own business - especially if you built it from nothing. I have always blurred, even when I worked a “normal job.” Admittedly, after my son was born I wanted to have that definitive line, but I simply didn’t or wasn’t able to - not really sure which. Now I work with my husband in our business, my son gets on & off the school bus here and at 7 helps out and by choice would rather be with us then playing soccer or other after school events. When ‘not working’ we are all very involved with community service - church, fire department, Rotary, American Legion, EarlyAct, etc. Activity and ‘deadlines’ is what makes us tick - in turn my son has become very able to change directions at the drop of a hat, if necessary - he is extremely adaptable - as compared to others in his age group. This adaptablility is a trait I see common in kids of other independent business people we know - they appear better equipped to think outside the box, than some of their friends - but maybe not as likely to be the star soccer players in high school? But in the end we all do what we think to be best - after all they don’t come with instruction books right?!
Pammy | January 10th, 2008 at 10:34 am