Cracking the Work-Life Balance Code

Spoiler: it’s not about the hours

Work-life balance is not about the number of hours you work. It’s the way you manage your energy & environment to get more out of your work than you put into it. 

This lesson took me eight years to learn, after dealing with not one, not two, but three bouts of burnout. This lesson has been a foundational element of how I’ve thought about my next career chapter. 

So today, I want to share with you my philosophy & process for building an energy balanced life. 

Balance is fluid

I’ve often thought that “if I do X, then I will finally achieve balance.” But like many things in life, balance is fluid. Regardless of how many “systems” we put in place, it’s natural for energy to become dysregulated, especially given the dynamic natures of our outer and inner worlds. That’s a feature, not a bug.  

Attempting pumpkin balance to find actual work life balance

Whenever this happens, I’ve gotten better at not freaking out. Instead, I tell myself to follow the energy. 

If I’m feeling exhausted, distracted, and irritable, as if I’m wading through molasses, that means I’m depleted. It’s a signal to do the bare minimum and rest.  

If I’m feeling calm, focused, and excited, as if there's electricity buzzing through my body, I know I’m energized. Perhaps this is a signal to accelerate, even if it means doing more during nights and weekends. 

50-30-20 rule. 

This “balance is fluid” thing is really hard for a perfectionist human like me. I like specific facts and numbers to know if I’m “doing something right.” If I’m feeling depleted a lot, is it normal or time for me to make some changes?

This is where the 50-30-20 rule comes in, which is my spin on Alexis Pappa’s rule of thirds. The rule says that in a given time period: 

• 50% of it should feel average. Just functioning. Not too energized, not too depleted. 

• 30% of it should feel super energizing.  Maybe this looks like working more than usual. 

• 20% of it should feel low on energy. Maybe this looks like having a “bad” day (or two). 

YMMV with the exact numbers, but for me, having some preconceived expectations of what to expect is helpful in calibrating of what an “ideal” month looks like for me. 

Tracking energy, making connections

Once I have an idea of what I want my ideal to look like, it’s helpful to track your current life against the ideal, comparing each activity against the activity level and emotions to see how it lines up with the expectation above.  

Specifically, here is what I did: 

1. Make a spreadsheet, with a cell for each hour of the day as rows and each day as columns. 

2. For one week, pick three times during the day to check-in from the last time you checked in till now. Track: 

   1. What you did (ideally 4-5 words max)

   2. “Score” of your energy level on a scale of 1-10 (10 is energizer bunny and 1 is no more gas in the tank)

   3. Any other feelings/emotions that came up. 

3. Once the week is over, don’t look at your sheet for a day or two. 

4. Then, examine the results twice. 

• For the first pass, focus on learning. 

  • Identify the places where you had the most energy (peaks), least energy (valleys), and biggest shifts in energy (aka transitions). What are you learning about your physical, emotional, and/or self actualization needs?

• For the second pass, focus on problem solving. 

  • Compare your week against the 30-50-20 rule. What are you lacking? (the average days? Bad days? Good days?) 

  • Based on the learnings, what are some factors that might be contributing to this issue? 

  • What are some potential ideas of things that you can do to get you 5% closer to your ideal? 

  • Pick one of these things to run as an experiment. 

My Process

For me, I came to the following realizations about what energizes me: 

• Progress & momentum in my work is essential to keep me going, whether via shipping, creating an unlock for a client, mastering a new skill, etc. 

• Genuine, deep connection with people over shared vulnerability 

• Positive validation, especially from people I admire or respect. 

• Taking consistent breaks, whether it’s spending time in nature or meditating to take a screen break or binge watching Netflix. 

… and what drains me: 

• Packed schedules with back-to-back meetings and minimal thinking time. 

• Expectations that feel outside of my control

• Working with people who are combative, poor communicators, and/or unstructured thinkers. 

• Doing work that isn’t connected to a broader purpose or calling

This list of insights was illuminating. For starters, it explained why I felt so depleted doing a job with a relatively chill workload (but felt little connection to the purpose/calling) but energized by a role where I regularly worked 60+ hours/week because of the people, purpose, and momentum. 

I ran a lot of experiments with these insights, but the biggest unlock for me was focused planning. I went through my priorities and narrowed them to three key projects. For each project, I laid out key milestones and a plan to achieve them. This ensured that every week, I saw how I was progressing towards my goals. That reduced the empty, anxious feelings inside. 

Resistance got me like….

Overcoming Resistance

Don’t get me wrong: shame and guilt still creep up when I follow my energy. But when it happens, I ask myself what will truly happen if XYZ doesn’t get done today, but tomorrow. I remind myself: I’m in it for the long haul, not just pushing hard in the short-term. 

I like to imagine my energy as a wave, rising and falling. Like Newton’s third law of motion, what comes up must come down, just like energy levels. Surrendering to nature’s natural rhythms isn’t just easy, it’s reality.

Thanks for reading

I’m on a journey to share the messiness of my career transition into a creative & entrepreneurial career, while also reflecting on the hard-won lessons from my product career. 

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