Weisure Lifestyle

How many people can truly say that their work life and home life never blur? I’m guessing here, but I think it’s probably less than 5%. What constitutes a blur? Here are a few examples:

• Your work friends and personal friends overlap
• You connect to work (via computer or Blackberry) on your personal time
• Your personal and work time overlap (you may be on vacation, but still connecting, or you may be at work and still connecting to personal life)
• You take care of personal business on work hours (for example scheduling car repairs, talking to teachers, or ordering things online)
• Working from home (for instance a home office, or taking meetings from home)

An article posted on CNN addresses the phenomenon of “weisure”, or the blurring of work and play (work/leisure) both what we do and where we do it. It is believed that this is due to technology, longer workweeks and more workers enjoying their jobs.

My Take On Weisure

Weisure combines work and leisure time. As far as I’m concerned, it’s work and it’s personal. It’s worsonal. I tend to define leisure as having nothing to do. What working parent has nothing to do? If it’s personal, it’s mine; it’s my time, my thoughts, my feelings, my family.

From what I have seen, those in Ministry are among the most challenged to manage weisure. A spiritual leader like a pastor/priest/rabi is called to blur the lines as well as their whole family. Some of it is enjoyable and probably doesn’t feel like work at all. The family may be serving Thanksgiving meals or hosting church guests. And other times, the calling impedes on family vacations, sick time, and priorities. Think of those who live in parsonages. They live on church property and therefore by extension they are church property? It may be difficult for members to realize the difference between personal and ministry time.

Family is my priority. If my husband or son needs me, I’d like to be there as fully as possible. When the lines blur, who receives my attention?

For those of us in the business world, Blackberry’s have become an extension of work that can be taken anywhere. My hours are a bit flexible at times and I have Monday’s off. Though I have scheduled time off, project timelines and deadlines continue with or without me and can require me to connect and maintain progress.

Toby is 4 years old and I can’t tell you how times I have had to make that choice – who receives my attention? Attempting to be SuperEmployee and SuperMom means that at times I’ve tried to be both. A very brief list of common ways you’ll find me juggling, and often:

• making dinner while reading work email
• assisted with the “potty” duties while hosting a teleconference for Europe
• finding the missing shoes and attending a training call for a new application
• reading my email by Blackberry while at the playground
• attending a meeting virtually on vacation (which meant vacation was possible since I didn’t have to be at work during potentially critical times)
• building toy train track while waiting for new software to upload

Guidelines for Worsonal Time

In my experience, those moments when you are attempting to mutli-task, you tend to be less effective in both areas. Without a clear solution to the worsonal time issue, I have resorted to a few guidelines:

1. Pick your battles. If the soccer game is really important – disconnect and leave the Blackberry at home. If the conference call is really important – take it from the office.
2. Commit dedicated time. We must have dedicated work time and dedicated home time. Of course you will have your blur moments, but that should not be the default.
3. Ask yourself, is the job worth it? If you are doing something you love, you are making a difference, and something you feel you were designed to do - than you know you will need to manage the worsonal time. If you answer No, then the sacrifice may not be worth it. If you aren’t sure, pray about it. If God is in the small stuff, he’s in the big stuff like this.
4. Who is keeping me in check? This is what spouses/parents/friends are for. We could easily find ourselves out of balance without someone keeping us in check.
5. Remember, you are not perfect. God didn’t make us perfect, but he designed us to be gifted in something and to desire to connect with people. I don’t believe he abandoned us on our first breath. I think he’s ready and willing to take this ride with us to celebrate every victory and share a tear.

Phew... I'm ready for a vacation (without a laptop companion). :)