One of the most challenging parts of developing a career is climbing to the top of whatever heap you’re in, having proven yourself, taken your knocks, gone the extra mile, and impressed the right people and groups sufficiently to be vested with significant leadership and responsibility. It feels good, doesn’t it? Well, it should, but it interesting, that once that pinnacle is achieved, there’s always more to do, isn’t there? There’s that saying, “Want something done? Ask a busy person.”, and nowhere is that more true than in our jobs, especially if you’ve managed to absorb responsibilities as they’ve been handed to you, perform at a high level, and not totally lose your composure in public.

So this poses a problem, of course, when even you, with seemingly endless capacity, begin to get that “Wow- I’m overcommitted” feeling. It may have taken a long time, but once it happens, it’s a little scary, as it can feel a bit out of control. When we get overcommitted at work or at home, something has to give. The worst-case scenario is when you slog along, continuing to shoulder the burdens that keep getting placed on you and smiling, taking on more and more without unloading anything, and then you drop a ball. The ball drop frequently occurs in a “perfect storm” situation, which can include any combination of variables such as increased work pressure/crisis, spousal/family illness, financial stress, personal health challenges for you or co-workers, unexpected problems that impede work progress, and problems with kids at school. Regardless of the factors contributing to the storm, however, the ball drop occurs for the same reason: there is not enough of you to go around, and the resulting lack of capacity to absorb the unexpected. Hopefully the ball you drop is a little one, but if it’s a big one, the outcome can be a mess and can not only affect you, your family, or the organization you work for, but will certainly take your self-confidence down a few notches.

The best-case scenario, however, is that you decide to deal with the overcommitted feeling before the ball drop occurs. This is a hard habit to develop, especially when you’ve “made it” by being all things to all people all the time, but it’s a critical leadership passage, and one that will prolong your career as well as your mental and physical health. There are 2 basic parts in approaching this, and basically they add up to making strategic decisions about what to give away when things get to be too much.

Part 1: Say No

If your plate is full, admit it. You wouldn’t sit at the dinner table with a plate full of food and when someone passes you the next dish, create a mountain of a meal rather than saying “no, thank you, I have enough”, would you? Hopefully not . Think of saying no to new things in the same way. The next time someone asks to serve on a Board of Directors, politely decline. The next PhD student who approaches you to be their dissertation advisor, let them know you have too many commitments already to do the job they deserve. Admittedly, sometimes you’ll be asked to do something you really want to do, and saying no is not what you want to do. In that case, something else must go to make room for the new task. Remember the plate? Either eat the roll or take it off your plate before taking another helping of something yummy…

Part 2: Give it away

So if you say no to a request or opportunity or want to say yes to something new but have a full plate, step 2 is to create opportunity for someone else. This can be called delegating, but that word suggests passing responsibility down; often, you may have the chance to pass responsibility and opportunity to your peers. When someone asks you to do something and you say no, it’s best if you can offer an alternative to that person, ideally having checked with the individual you’re recommending first. If you need to unload a task or responsibility to allow yourself to take on something new, do that as well, but discuss the possibility with potential recipients of the added task before doing so. The goal here is to spread work around by giving people with capacity additional tasks, not to overload them instead of you.

Clearly, the cynics in the audience (myself included) will say “Oh, yeah- well, we all know that s*** travels downhill, right?” The key here is to pass on opportunities and tasks with integrity and from your ethical core. Listen to your gut here. Although it would be great to unload the huge, complex, painful project you’re struggling with in favor of a new, shiny, simpler one, your gut will tell you that such a move is wrong. Listen to that, and do not pass the buck when it should stop with you. If you are working on the painful project and really want to try to take on the shiny one, let your manager or colleague know that you are interested, but cannot work on the new project until you have completed the current one. Also, when passing incoming tasks or opportunities to others when you cannot take them on, think about the people you work with and who could derive benefit from taking on the task and showing they can do a good job. This can be a developmental tool for you to use, and the projects or opportunities you offer to others can be presented in the frame of “Here is something that came to me that I think would be a great opportunity for you, and I know you’ll do a great job, so I wanted to offer it to you first.” Using respectful delegation and task sharing in this way can be a wonderful leadership tool, but be careful not to overload your reports or your colleagues!

By being strategic about taking on more, creating options for getting the work done when you say no, and using delegation as a leadership tool, you can protect your time and make sure you stay out of the “overwhelm zone.” Remember, it is better to do some things very well than a number of things poorly.

Ah- its the WEEKEND!!! A time to relax, do the things you want to do, and NOT WORK. I know this is hard, but I am a convert to the “not working on the weekends” crowd. I used to spend weekends interspersing checking and answering emails and trying to get “caught up” with family time and so-called relaxing. What I learned was that on Monday morning I was neither “caught up” nor “relaxed”. In fact, I was often more frazzled than when I walked in the door on Friday evening, so I changed some things, and I, my work, and my family are far better off for it. First, the things I’ve learned:

• The work will still be there on Monday. It’s not as if not working on the weekend will somehow remove your opportunity to pick up where you left off on Friday.

• “Caught up” is a myth. There is always something else I can do, and what I do is meet deadlines through careful planning, not through working on the weekends.

• There are no true emergencies in my job. I am not a firefighter, physician, or hostage negotiator. Honestly, nothing is truly an emergency.

• I will not be on my deathbed saying “I wish I’d spent more time in the lab/office.” Getting to the age where more and more of my friends are dying or becoming ill has been a real wake-up call for spending time with the people I love, who, frankly, are not at work.

So what do I do to create and maintain the sacredness of my weekend? Well, I’ve set and hold some very firm boundaries and have set some goals for my personal life just as I have for my professional life. Here are some suggestions that I’ve found helpful:

1. Simply do not do email or work phone calls in the evening or on weekends. Period. The trick here is to communicate this to the people you work with to manage their expectations, especially if this is a change. Just let people know that due to family or personal obligations, you are unavailable for email and phone calls after hours and on weekends.

2. Set goals in your personal life just like you do in your professional life. If you set a goal of completing a training or publishing a book or paper or getting a promotion at work, you plan for it and work for it, right? Do the same thing in your personal life. I set a goal of learning to play tennis, partly for exercise and social activities, and partly so I can play with my daughter. I’m taking steps to meet that goal just as I set and take steps to accomplish things at work.

3. Schedule dates with yourself and other people for non-work activities. Just as you make appointments for work items or events, create calendar entries for personal and family time and activities. Plans are easier to break in favor of work if you do not have an appointment or firm commitment- seeing the date on the calendar can help make the event real and harder to skip in favor of work.

4. Use technology boundaries to separate your work and your life. Maybe it would be helpful to create different computer, email, and instant messaging accounts for personal versus professional activities, as well as separate electronic and paper calendars.

5. Decide on what you will consistently say “no” to: Figure out what kinds of work activities that may cut into your “real life” are worth saying yes to and which ones you’ll say no to. For example, I do a number of invited speaking gigs, and although I am always glad to spend the whole day with the group who invited me, I always decline dinner invitations, as that is prime family/kid/homework time, and I need to be a Mom in the evenings. Likewise, I do a minimum of traveling, and am very careful to choose only conferences that are really worth it professionally; I say no to at least 80% of what I could go to or am invited to.

It was a little tough to commit to and set others’ expectations for these changes in my boundaries, but now that I’ve done it, I find that I return to work on Monday rested, more effective in taking on my work, relaxed, and fulfilled from spending some time with my family and myself. My tennis game still stinks, but that will get better.

I am convinced that it is a myth that there will always be balance between our personal and professional lives. Getting used to this idea is a watershed moment in the lives of working parents, and once accepted, the idea is liberating. For example, as a professor, a large part of my job is grant writing and lab research, essentially all of which is driven by deadlines. I spent years beating myself up about the fact that when I have a grant deadline looming I end up working on the weekends in the lab or at my office to make sure I hit the deadline. My husband and kids take it in stride, waving goodbye to me on Saturday morning and heading out to see a movie or play in the park. I return home in the evening, strung-out but successful in my work tasks, and constantly apologizing for being gone during family time. Finally, one night my husband asked me what I was apologizing for. “It’s not like you do this all the time, you know- once in a while you have to put in a little extra time at work, and that’s okay.” You know, he was right, and as soon as he said it out loud, I realized that it was true- working slavishly on weekends and during family time was, and is, a rarity, made more conspicuous in my own mind by its infrequency. I remember the smells in the kitchen, the music on the iPod, and what shirt he was wearing when he said it that night- it was that powerful for me, and I am grateful to him for having said it.

More importantly, when my Mom recently became ill, I back-burnered work almost completely for several days to be with her and my Dad at the hospital.  My boss was supportive of this, as he knows that I will still get all the stuff done I need to and I have a wonderful colleague who was willing and able to pick up the one task that was urgent.  I am so grateful for having that time.  As an adult daughter, this is the time I have to give back to my parents and give them at least a little of the kind of support they’ve given me, and I only have one chance to do that.  There are plenty of chances for work.

I’ve had the pleasure of talking with many colleagues and clients about the wisdom my husband imparted to me and how my own experince continues to reinforce the myth of balance.  Interestingly, this concept of accepting that it’s really okay if sometimes we let work come first to meet a deadline, and equally, that sometimes (often?) it’s necessary to put the brakes on at work to help an aging or ailing parent, make a baseball game, dance recital, or parent-teacher conference can be uncomfortable at first for working parents, as we’re supposed to have all the balls in the air at the same time. Accepting that sometimes one thing has to get a bit more attention that another is yet another way that working moms can nourish and support themselves; it reduces “superparent” syndrome instantly.

Of course, it’s not always easy to remember that it’s okay to be out of balance from time to time, but keeping a few primary things in the front of your mind can help:

1. Remember to appreciate the forest rather than concentrating on single trees: As long as on the whole the feedback you get from your family and co-workers is that things are going well and moving forward, it’s okay to pay a bit more attention to work or home from time to time at the short-term expense of the other.

2. Be kind to yourself: As a working parent, you already know how important it is to support yourself. One way to do this is to push away feelings of guilt or inadequacy you might conjure up when you temporarily favor work over family, for example.

3. Help is a good thing: It’s okay and important to ask for help when you are in crunch mode at work or at home. Ideally, you have a spouse of family nearby that can help, but another great resource is other working parents. Creating arrangements to trade child care, transportation and weekend care with other working moms can not only help you all get what you need to do take care of, but it provides additional social opportunities for your kids.

The take-home message here is that it’s okay to favor work over family from time to time, and to put family squarely ahead of your professional life at other times. When times like this happen occasionally within the context of a generally balanced and boundary-driven life, there’s nothing to worry about- we all know that from time to time we have to make hard choices to accomplish all the things we need to do. By taking care of yourself personally and professionally, you assure that your family and career both flourish in the long run.

As a coach I spend a great deal of time supporting clients in finding ways to establish and maintain balance and boundaries between their work and personal lives with varying degrees of success.  For some, it’s pretty simple:  Make appointments with yourself or your family and keep them just as you would with a client or a colleague.  For others, its harder:  Appointments get overridden all the time as things come up at work, there is that “one more email” that has to be answered, or a decision to work on a presentation blots out “me” time.  What’s the difference between these people?  Well, my own experience and my work as a coach has distilled it to one word:  GUILT. 

Somehow our society had grown to value work time and professional achievement  over personal time and recreation to the point that taking time to create balance between the seemingly-endless stream of work and our families creates immense internal turmoil for many folks.  We’ve internalized society’s bias that more work=better work (a flawed premise for many reasons) such that for some people, great time relaxing, hiking, reading, or playing with our friends and families is overshadowed by a cloud of guilt that “I *should* be working.”  How sad.

Of course, as is true of most of this blog, I’m writing about this because I’ve allowed myself to fall into this trap numerous times.  I distinctly remember a while back when I’d promised my daughter that we’d play Uno (she always beats me), “as soon as Mommy is done with this email.”  Well, the emails dragged on, and finally, she asked me if I was ever going to be done.  My initial reaction was a welling-up of frustration and anger with her impatience, but as I looked up at her, I saw that she had been waiting over an hour and also, that she was still waiting patiently.  As I looked at her, I also saw how grown up she’s becoming (even though she’s only 6) and suddenly I felt guilty for a different reason.  I shut down my email, closed my laptop, and she beat me.  Twice. 

What was the guilt?  Before I know it, she and her brother will be grown and out of the house and I’ll be left with all the time in the world to do my email on the weekends.  Thankfully, I’m paying enough attention to re-focus my weekend energy into these wonderful kids and my best friend, my husband, to honor the balance that we all need between the stress of the week (work, school, homework, driving, etc.) and “us” time.  Too soon, we’ll be sending them off to college and wishing for a game of Uno.

The appointments I make with my family and myself are non-negotiable, and have to be.  I am proud of the work I do, and I enjoy it, but it’s the relationships in our lives that really matter.  It makes more sense to feel guilt for not making time to be with the people we love than for not working through the weekend; the good news is that guilt usually tells us that something needs to change, and perhaps keeping those appointments with yourself, your family, and your freinds is the solution.