On the bike

I am on my bike riding to work all this week, well that's the plan. I have been trying to ride to work at least 3 days a week for about the last 3 months, and in general this has been working well, and I achieve my goal more often then not. This is my first week back at work this year, and the plan for the week is to ride every day (to get the year off to a good start, and with a view in mind that when daylight savings finishes, there is a good chance I wont be riding to work!).

So I rode yesterday (Monday) and today (Tuesday), but the rest of the week is looking tough, with heavy rain being predicted for Melbourne, I think it will be one day at a time for the rest of the week.

On another bike riding note, I more then achieved my goals for last year (2010). I set a goal of doing 4500 KM's for the year, and finished with just over 6000 KM's for the year. Being able to ride to work for about the last 3 months was a great help in achieving the goal, so I really want to keep that up for as long as I can.

Work\Life , Life\Work!

You read about it a lot, you hear about it at work all the time, you must have work\life balance! I really struggle to understand what is meant by work\life balance? How does giving employees access to the corporate network 24/7 via blackberry devices, or remote connections equal work\life balance? I understand that these tools should mean I can shift where and where I work, but in reality all they do is increase the length of the work day (am I wrong?).

So it got me thinking, work\life, that to me suggested that work comes first and I need to balance my lifestyle around work. I want to start to change this, I am now starting to think about Life\Work. Lifestyle comes first, and I need to work out how to arrange work around that! This is a significant change in my thinking, rather then trying to fit my lifestyle around my work commitments, I now start to think how I can fit my work commitments around my lifestyle, the benefits are

-Work is starting to have boundaries. When I am at home, I don't work! (broke that one on Friday night, but that's the first time!).

- Given that work now has boundaries, and the time allocated to work is constrained, I need to priorities things better then in the past. I have always been reasonably good at this, but continue to get better.

- I need to delegate, and I do.

- When I am at work, I need to be efficient, use the tools that are available to me, and try to change the way others work when it makes me less efficient.

The goal, to have a better life\work balance, if I keep focusing on my lifestyle first I think this will make my work interactions better also given the behaviours it drive in my, lets see!