What role does your work play in your life? If your whole life was a Pizza, and one slice was called“work” how big is your slice right now? And what are the other slices called?
When you look at your Pizza of Life, are the slices how
you would like them?
I recently re-drew my own Pizza and noticed that the
slice called “fitness” had disappeared and had been replaced by a slice called
“watching TV", especially anything Vampire related. Looking at the whole of my life in this way means
I can make sensible choices. A well
balanced pizza probably has slices that cover a range of areas of your life
that may include any of the following:
·
work· learning and development
· family
· friends
· social life
· health and fitness
· spirituality and religion
· rest and relaxation
· hobbies
· money
· pets
· travel
When you are facing any kind of personal challenge or
change this can be a great time to re- evaluate your "Pizza of Life".
Why don’t you review your Pizza of Life ?
What slices do you want to include, enlarge
or reduce correspondingly? Is there a
slice that has been neglected like my fitness slice that needs to be added in? If so, what will go to make room for it? Just remember that the most wholesome,
nutritious Pizza is a well-balanced Pizza.
I've never seen a pizza in this light before. A bit of time management training required to even out my slices.
ReplyDeleteMy pizza life was nutritious few month ago but it seem it need review because I just realised it is not nutritious anymore. I need to slow down and look back what I did right that am doing wrong now, then I might get my pizza right again.
ReplyDeletea good strategy A
DeleteFirst step is to identify the current slices in your pizza and then assess what is missing and make the adjustments
ReplyDeleteToo often we say that we dont have the time to do something and how often have we said out loud (or to ourselves) the following types of statements;
ReplyDeleteI dont have the time to visit my family
There arent enough hours in the day
My work is taking over my life
The only person who can change this is yourself. I have been thinking that I am not spending enough time with my son but when I looked at the reasons why I discovered that I am spending too much time doing things that I want to do e.g. playing football, watching surfing the net etc.
This will change from today!!
Brilliant to hear and Im sure your son will think the same. worklife balance is important to become an effective leader not only to YOU but to all the other stakeholders in your life including your son. Well done Stevie.
ReplyDeleteI reviewed my pizza today - it doesn't make a nutritious meal at all. Most of my pizza is spent on work (as you would expect). I was surprised at the other slices though - no fitness whatsoever and only skinny slices for my family and learning new things. I spend so much time on 'homework' with my daughter that there is no time at all to 'enjoy' 'quality' time with her. This is going to change this week.
ReplyDeleteI have made a pledge to myself to find a local aerobics class and start to do that again. My daughter and I have made arrangements to go swimming at the weekend and I am going to read more - I am currently reading Karren Brady's book but even this takes a back seat in favour of watching TV or cleaning.
I firmly believe a healthy work life balance is needed so we can all be productive employees and also happier individuals. The problem with all that was that although I was preaching this to other people within our organisation, I was never listening to my own advice. The pizza has made me think differently about my own priorities - I hope to see a totally different type of pizza in one months time when I revisit the pizza exercise.
Folks, I'm still thinking about the pizza (lol)but this time in relation to those I manage at work. Instead of just focusing on what a person does and doesnt do well at work (we all have strengths and weaknesses) I have starting to give more consideraion to their life outside work to see if I can help them get a better work life balance.
ReplyDeleteEveryone has different pressures, supports and challenges outside of work which has an impact on how they perform everyday. As a manager I think we need to support staff to have a work life balance and make sure that pressures at work does not have a negative impact on their home life which is stresful enough.
If we help staff with this the benefit can be greater productivity, happier staff etc.
Win win for all? What do you think and any tips on how I can achieve this?
Wow some life changing decisions, very well done. Im sure your family will be delighted. I would be really interested in hearing the impact of your decisions...keep us posted. You will never look at another Pizza again without thinking about your worklife balance... my work is done lol Keep up with the reflective and critical thinking this is the DNA of an effective leader.
ReplyDeleteI have for the first time reviewed my pizza and if I was someone looking in I wouldn't want a slice of my pizza.
ReplyDeletelike most people the majority of my time is spent working, on average 13 hours. the rest of the time is divided between walking the dogs, training, watching TV and trying to fit in some sleep. No time is dedicate to my family. Even at the weekend I have a job that ties up Saturdays.
In reflection I have sacrificed my home live, time with my family, especially with my kids in the believe that by working all the hours God sent, I was being a 'good provider'.Only now on reflection do I realize that maybe I wasn't a 'good provider' of my time for my family. Does this make me a sad workaholic?
I now realize that something has to change. I need to seriously think about the hours that I spend in work, which is by choice out of some misguided loyalty/commitment to the company.
I have a 4 year old granddaughter and I spent as much time as I can with her, swimming, GAA, walks etc,and she spend every weekend in our house for her sleep overs.
Maybe subconsciously I see this as a second chance and I am trying to recapture my lost time with my kids. Does this make me sound like a saddo???
I must admit that like most people, my largest pizza slice is my work. However, this is not something that I actually want to change. I love the job that I am doing currently and find it very rewarding. I need to get away from the house and could never be a 'stay at home' mother as I am not great with small people. Although my social slice is small, I am quite happy with this at the moment as going out entails tidying the house from top to bottom, either for the babysitter or for the benefit of the people we are entertaining, and I find cleaning/tidying/hoovering extremely stressful. Definitely need to consider getting a cleaner! Fitness slice is also small but, aside from walking the dogs, I loathe exercise. Would love to take the dogs for longer rambles but will need to wait a little longer until my daughter's legs grow or she masters a bicycle.
ReplyDeleteI too have the biggest slice in the workplace, which for me is good, as being new to the org the energy is there to audit exisiting systems and make the necessary amendments. The other big slice is my church attendance which embraces into my family life. Because I work for a church the 2 often cross over which can seem like a 16 hour day in work. This could been seen as negative but it seems my pizza is nicely balanced and full of the right ingredients. One thing has shone out though, seperate time for my wife. She also works for the church we attend and attends a lot of the functions in my work. Our kids are well up now and live active lives but do not have any interest in church. Perhaps this is the area I need to address and bring them into the pizza mix, rather than being a cash machine..More reflection needed.
ReplyDeleteIt's official, I am greedy. Needed 2 pizza's to get my 'light bulb' moment. I did the pizza test in April just as I was in the process of moving job from a full on operational post to a new post with a policy focus. I had no real surprises-most of the pizza was 'work'. Considered my new pizza in May now that I am getting settled and couldn't believe already how much smaller the 'work' slice is. Looking at the 2 pizzas side by side I realised that I had missed the fact that the new post offered me a real opportunity to get my work/life balance back under my control. I have realised that more and more I had equated being effective as a manager and leader was dependent on how much time I spent in the office but losing sight of the 'quality' of what I was doing, and the negative impact on me as a person, mum and wife. Have made the start to the rejuvenated me. Signed up for the Corporate Global Challenge in work, walking 10,000 steps a day for 16 weeks. Bring it on. I need the exercise now with all this pizza!!!!
ReplyDeleteI probably didn’t have to draw this to realise what slices of the pizza are getting thinner and thinner but it is scary when its black and white, staring you in the face.
ReplyDeleteWork takes up a huge amount of my time. As I live in Newcastle, I have an additional 3 hours added to my working day from travelling to and from work. The nature of my work means that I can’t really work an early shift as such. So instead of coming home and going to the gym or going for a walk with my partner, I have found that I am too tired to do anything other than watch reality TV, even the cleaning the house has taken a back seat!!
On reflection, I really need to spend more quality time with my partner, i'm getting married next year so I guess its probably better to invest this time now! I also need to stop watching reality TV and go to bed earlier, its either that or get a new job closer to home!!
Well no surprises when I carried out this exercise. Work was the bulk of my life just like most people and then with having 3 kids between the age of 2-6 years took up a fair chunk of what was left over. I sat and completed a new life/work balance plan, incorporating 3 things I wanted to do - one being the want and the need to catch up with some friends at least 1 night a week. Walking started 2 nights a week but after just 2 weeks I failed to keep this commitment miserably.
ReplyDeleteRelooking with a fresh approach I had to rethink what was really achievable and realistic. I have changed my normal routine, not a lot but enough. I am now going to take the hour between 5-6pm for myself every Tues & Thurs, as once I step through the door that "me" time has gone ... dinner, baths, ironing, UUJ assignment etc etc...
We try to tweek our work scenarios to whats achievable and gets the results. But perhaps we don't exercise this skill in our personal lives enough. It's good to shake the dust off from time to time and get that freshness to life back!!
My pizza wasn’t too bad, I found that work took up most of my time but I am much the same as Kristi, this doesn’t bother me too much. It is situational based and when times are tough the tough get going (that wasn’t really me some other cheesy person typed that in). Because the current climate is more testing I think a lot of people are having to do more hours than they would normally do and we just have to accept that. I have always been able to unwind with football or exercise that helps me to relax and relieve most frustrations. I did however from my pizza come to realise I should be making more time for my family, whether it is work or exercise that needs to suffer I am not sure yet.
ReplyDeleteThis concept has lived and impacted me for several weeks now. Like others, I appear to be happy with the "slices", for me, and yet if I heard of someone else who had a similar balance I would be appaled!. Having been self employed for almost 30 years, the business really owned me rather than me it, so 12 hour days were not unusual. When I retired I knew I could not sit at home feeling ineffective, therefore I got involved in the 3rd sector. It was not too long before the previous balance reappeared!. Success is my addictive drug. This is measured by how many I help (profit has always been the outcome rather than the goal). In discussing my "pizza" at home, I have discovered many home truths, and have had to reflect on why I have not seen helping there more as a "success". Long way to go.
ReplyDelete