5 Advices on ‘Work Life balance’ by Nigel Marsh

by Shweta Saxena · Published November 21, 2015 · Updated June 1, 2016

There is no standard definition of Work-life-balance. It varies from person to person. When an entrepreneur plans to launch a startup or has already launched it, there are1000’s of things going around in his mind at the same time. He may be sitting quiet but his mind is always wondering about the complex metrics numbers, strategies to increase those figures. Most often it is the family and close friends who miss their company. It may have even bigger repercussions in life if your work suffers due to stress. One has to have a balance of life and work in order to increase his efficiency at work.In this article we will discuss the 5 Advices on ‘Work Life balance’ by Nigel Marsh.

Only 10% work professionals opted for “Productivity and Performance as success” where as 45% said “Work life Balance” is what defines success to them, according to a survey by Right Management, wholly owned subsidiary of Manpower Group.

Highly in demand as a public speaker Nigel Marsh, travels the globe regularly giving speeches to major corporations on both his business and personal views. His TED speech on work/life balance remains the most viewed ever given outside America with well over two million hits. Here are the 5 Advices on ‘Work Life balance’ by Nigel Marsh.

1- He says all the discussion about flexi-time, dress down Fridays and paternity leave are just a way to mask the core issue which is “Certain Jobs and career choices are fundamentally incompatible with being meaningfully engaged on a day to day basis with young family.”

2-“Commercial companies are inherently designed to get as much out of you as they can get away with.” On the one hand they put childcare facility at the job to lure the employees but the hidden reason is they ask you to spend more time in office with more concentration (free from the worries of your child). Nigel says Work-Life balance is too important to be left in the hands of your employers and one needs to set the boundaries himself.

3-“We have to be careful with the timeframe that we choose upon which to judge our balance” Everything cannot be done in one day we need to elongate the time frame on which we need to judge the balance. He further says that “Have a life when I retire” is trap – because it is the time ‘When my children have left home, my wife has divorced me, my health is failing’. A day is too short at work and after I retire is too long, its got to be a middle way.

4-“We need to approach balance in a balanced way”. There is an intellectual side, an emotional side, and a spiritual side and to be balanced one has to attend to all of those areas. It might be quite daunting if one is not able to live any of his above-mentioned sides.

5-“Small things matter, with the smallest investment in the right places you can dramatically transform the quality of your relationships and quality of your life.”

He illustrates it with an experience of his life when he had to pick up his son from school. “I left work an hour early and picked him up from the school gate, we walked down to the park, messed around the swings played some silly games. I then walked him up to the hill to the local café and we shared a pizza for two. Then walked down the hill to our home and I gave him his bath and put him in his Batman pajamas. I then read him a chapter of Roald Dahl’s “James and Giant Peach”. I then put him to bed, tucked him in, gave him a kiss on forehead and said, “Good night mate.” He said, “Dad, This has been the best day of my life.” I hadn’t done anything, hadn’t taken him to Disney World or bought him a PlayStation.