The Work/Life Graph

I’ve been thinking a lot about balance lately, and trying to figure out how to inject more living into my life. I love my work a little too much, so much so that it has become more or less all I think about, talk about and do with my days. I read How To Not Always Be Working by Marlee Grace, and she recommended creating a Work and Not Work list, but this seemed a little reductive too me. My relationship with my work was more complex than that – there are elements of my work that are the most enjoyable things in my life, and things that aren’t work but I hate. I needed more nuance.

Which is when I came up with the Work/Life Graph. I needed to be able to include my feelings about the things that would be on the list, and a graph seemed the simplest way of doing this at a glance (without a lot of complex colour coding 🙈).

Make your graph

Draw a graph with Work and Not Work on one axis, and Least Enjoy and Most Enjoy on the other, and populate it with all the things that you have and do currently in your life based on how much they feel like work to you, and how much you enjoy them. So add in the day to day work tasks, the more broader tasks and roles you have, then the things you do occasionally and plan for. Include things you may not think of – having a bath, cooking, shopping. Anything that you spend time on in your life goes in the graph.

Don’t think too much about where you put everything, go with your visceral gut reaction. And to the perfectionists, don’t worry about having numbers on the axes and getting things exactly at the right number – this is just for you, let your intuition guide you.

You may also have to ask yourself some tough questions (‘do I like seeing my family more than I like baths?’) but again, remember that no one else is going to see this and that your feelings are valid. For tricky things, ask yourself if where you’ve put it really feels right, and be honest with yourself enough to move it if not.

After you’ve plotted everything on the graph, split it into four quadrants which gives you four main areas of your work and life – things that don’t feel like work that you least enjoy, things that do feel like work that you least enjoy, things that don’t feel like work that you do enjoy, and things that do feel like work that you do enjoy. It’s these quadrants we then need to work on.

Analysing Your Quadrants

NOT WORK/LEAST ENJOY

For me, the things that fell into this quadrant were cleaning and sleeping – cleaning because obviously, and sleeping because it takes up too much of my time (I tend to have at least nine hours sleep a day). The things in this quadrant are likely to be annoying things you can’t get around like chores and drop offs and organising a household. So the questions to ask are these:

Does this impact my life so negatively that it needs to drastically change?
Can I outsource this?
Can I make this more enjoyable?

If it doesn’t need a drastic change (like perhaps moving house), then we’re left with the other two options. I could outsource my cleaning, but in the short term I’m going to try and make it more enjoyable by making it a time to catch up with podcasts and have a reward afterwards.

WORK/LEAST ENJOY

This one is a biggie. In this quadrant is likely to be everything that makes you doubt whether self-employment is even worth it and ask yourself why the hell you’re doing this. It’s likely to be the stuff that detracts from the work you love doing, and is the stuff that negatively encroaches on your balance.

Like me, you may have things like your inbox, admin, sales or pitching emails. I was quite surprised to see that Instagram was something that fell into this quadrant – it was quite near the border, but very definitely in Least Enjoy. If you have something that surprises you, investigate why – is it something that you used to love, is it something that has changed, what are your feelings around it? Instagram was definitely something I used to enjoy, but I think now it always feels like a big task on my list and a place where I need to be keeping up with everyone so it feels kind of like another email inbox.

Again, the questions to ask in this quadrant are:

Does this impact my life so negatively that it needs to drastically change?
Can I outsource this?
Can I make this more enjoyable?

Perhaps something you’ve written down shows that you need a different business model – it’s part of the reason I’m reducing my coaching slots and focusing on more digital products this year. I also decided to outsource my admin (scheduling my podcasts and blog posts) to a VA – this was something I couldn’t make more enjoyable and that wasn’t going to get better in time, so I outsourced. For things like emails, I’m making them more enjoyable (or bearable) by drawing distinct boundaries around my inbox and letting go a little more – I’m telling myself it’s ok for something to be left unread for 24 hours and to give specific time over to my inbox so it’s not something I’m always rushing.

NOT WORK/MOST ENJOY

Ok, now we’re on to the fun stuff! I was really surprised at the number of things I had in this quadrant, I thought for sure this would be the part of the graph that would be most empty as I’ve always thought that I don’t have anything in my life that wasn’t work. Well, this exercise showed me that that wasn’t the truth. What I notice from this section of the graph is two things: that there are simple pleasures I have in my life that I hadn’t ‘counted’ before as being life, and that there are other things that I love but just don’t make enough time for.

So looking at your part of this graph, ask yourself these questions:

What surprises me and why?
How can I make more time for these things in my life?
How can I be more consistent with these things?

So for me it might be having a routine where I go for one big walk a week and have days that I make time for cooking. It might be subscribing to more magazines and making sure I read them in the bath. It might be making sure that there is always a trip booked in to look forward to.

WORK/MOST ENJOY

These are the reasons that you started this whole thing in the first place, right? These are your big joys, and therefore probably your greatest strengths too. This is the stuff that yes, feels more like work than the things in the last quadrant, but you love it so much that getting out of bed is pleasure when you have these to look forward to.

No real shocks that mine are the creative work of writing, podcasting and photography – writing, in particular, was the reason I started this whole thing in the first place. I also enjoy teaching and helping people make connections and understand things they never had before but, as a true introvert, I love thinking and planning and coming up with schemes (I mean, hence this whole blog post!).

Your questions here:

Do I do as much of this as I would want to in my life?
How can I make more time for this in my life?
How can I centre more of my business around this?

Let’s take writing as an example. I definitely don’t do nearly as much writing as I would like to week to week, so by outsourcing some of my admin I’m hoping that that will free up more time to spend writing. However, I also need a direction for that writing, so I will centre my business more around the courses and digital products that require me to be writing regularly.

***

This is my first time doing the Work/Life Graph and I fully expect it to ebb, flow and change over time. Had I done it a year ago it would have looked completely different, and I expect in a few months time certain things will have crossed the borders (particularly if we’re putting things in place to do more of what we love and make the things we don’t more enjoyable – who knows, maybe I’ll start to love cleaning 😉).

My biggest encouragement to you if you’re thinking about doing it for yourself is to let go of all the preconceptions, the should and the hopes and just be honest with yourself in the moment. If we aren’t honest, we can’t fix it. Be compassionate but truthful with how you feel, and if you’re alarmed at how your graph comes out, know that you’ve taken the first step to making it better and it’s all in your control.

I’d love to know how you get on, what you find and what you change, so if you feel up for sharing your graphs on Instagram please do tag me in them.