Having It All... Just Kidding

If there’s one book that starts off with a big, audacious lie, it’s Having It All...and Making It Work. In fact, the whole point of the book is the exact opposite of the title. 

It contains this advice, for example: “We simply have to choose what is most important to us about our family life and work life.”

And: “Make a few big decisions about what you want in life and stick with them, at least for a designated period of time.” 

And: “Our ability to differentiate first-tier priorities from lower-priority items will boost our success at balancing our career and family wants.”

The author of Having It All...and Making It Work is Quinn Mills, who was also my undergraduate thesis advisor. 

His career advice to me (paraphrasing): If you want to be a CEO and see your family, don’t work in a first-tier city or in a fast-growing industry. Instead, choose a second-tier city in a sleepy industry. It’s the only way.

So I guess it’s impossible to “have it all”! 

But I think it’s even more stark than that. In all of my reading of the “productivity” literature, the singular insight is this: making choices is the only productivity hack there is.

There are no magical tools and tricks to having it all. It always comes down to (a) knowing what’s most important; (b) prioritizing time, effort, and attention on those things; and (c) saying no to everything that will rob time from those priorities.

This image from Essentialism is evocative:

“Imagine a four burner stove…. One burner represents your family, one is your friends, the third is your health, and the fourth is your work. In order to be successful you have to cut off one of your burners. And in order to be really successful you have to cut off two.”

That’s probably true...but yikes!

Here’s the thing that I’ve found interesting in my work with clients: Writing down the right priorities is usually easy, especially since it’s typically obvious what’s more or less important to them. Making the decision to stop certain activities is difficult, but there’s often a forcing mechanism—e.g., a budget, time, or “hours of sleep required to function” constraint—that compels the hard choice. But the most difficult part is often being comfortable with these choices.

In Having it All, balance is described as “a mixture of career and family engagement, which gives a person fulfillment and avoids tension, guilt, and regret.”

For me, having confidence in our choices is what helps us avoid the “tension, guilt, and regret.” It’s what helps us be present in whatever we’re doing at the moment rather than worrying about what we’re not doing.

So how does one get that confidence? It’s hard!

But one thing that might be useful is reframing the decision from “what I’m saying No to” to “what I’m saying Yes to.” For example, from “I’m turning down a big job opportunity overseas” to “I’m saying Yes to maintaining my existing circle of friends and childcare supports.” Or from “I’m missing out on that tv show” to “I’m saying Yes to watching the exact same show while working out in the morning.”

It’s not easy, but it helps!