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MWL Life Balance Survey
Responses Life balance is attainable if we gauge our success by the ability to make lifestyle choices. I consider myself successful because I have attained a level whereby I can essentially choose my income, my hours, and whether to work or attend the school program. If we measure our success in dollars, then we can never attain it, because there is always more money available if you put in one more hour at the office. I teach Junior Achievement to third graders, and I try to pass this value on to the kids. Education gives them the ability to have more choices for their careers and more lifestyle flexibility. If the goal is simply to make more money, it is unattainable. If they learn to measure success by the ability to make lifestyle choices, then they can achieve life balance too! Janet Stellpflug ------------------------------------------ I think of balance as an ongoing oscillating balance. While on a given day the professional life, or personal life may weigh heavier on the scale, over time the redistributions results in an overall balance. For me, and it seems many professional women, our lives our overly full which can lead to stress , guilt and exhaustion. I try to remember that this is a choice that I have made to have this overly full life. While I may be triple booked for each my moment of my life, it also means that my life is filled with many blessings- husband, children, profession, charities and hobbies- all of which I remind myself that I am grateful for when I get guilty, tired or stressed!
Katherine Bloomquist Holub ------------------------------------------- I'm currently teaching a 'Women and the Law' class at the University of MN-Duluth and we just touched on this subject. It is interesting that "life balance" is important enough to be considered by MWL for a dedicated issue of its journal. I truly believe that there is a difference of how men and women view themselves in context of their work. No doubt this is, in part, cultural and certainly subject to each individual's goals. A definition of "life balance" would have to change during a person's lifetime. Concentration of energy, time and financial resources change during the course of a life: school, career, family, avocations, retirement. Currently, I "balance" my emotional, intellectual, and physical needs with the needs of my family and job. All of these are interrelated; I certainly receive emotional rewards from my family, etc. Have I achieved a balance between my professional and personal life? Some days, some weeks, some months. Each day is different and I personally look at the long term. I can certainly put my personal "wants" on hold if I need to put extra hours in at work. My advice, for what it is worth, is for young attorneys to begin thinking about long term goals, not just trying to make this week's billable hour quota. Where do you want to be in five years? Ten years? What are you willing to do to achieve that goal, either on a personal or professional level? How much time and energy are you willing to expend? I don't expect a young attorney to have all of the answers and, in fact, the answers may well change but a person should be considering the questions. The most important advice is to do what is right for you as an individual. If a person is a workaholic, so be it. If a person is interested in succeeding in a large organization, i.e., law firm, and enjoys it, so be it. If a person is interested in spending time and energy in helping raise a family and is not as interested in high monetary compensation, so be it. These examples are not given for the purpose of making any type of value judgment on the choices. What works for one person may not work for another person and all women attorneys can be supportive in allowing our colleagues to make and live with their professional choices. Heather Sweetland ------------------------------------ I would define life balance as knowing what you want and how you are going to get there, and keeping your priorities in place while doing it. The roles that I will be trying to balance as I become a new attorney are finding enough time to spend with my husband and son while cultivating a new career. Suzette Kusnierek ------------------------------------- I have found that my life balance is directly proportional to my ability to control my schedule. I am a sole practitioner in a small town. I have flexibility in that if my children need something, I am able to work something out, for the most part. I am able to tell clients up front that my office is closed on Friday afternoons between Memorial Day and Labor Day. My assistant schedules appointments and hearings to accomodate that as much as possible. My income is not in the range of even a beginning associate in a large metro firm, but then, my time is my own. That is worth so much more to me. There are choices to be made, and I have not regretted my choice of this type of flexibility and small town lifestyle. Carol Lostetter --------------------------------------- It has become more challenging
to keep our lives in balance because the practice of law has become more
competitive, and picked up speed during the last 25 years, with faxes, e-mail,
computers and more deadlines and rules. -------------------------------- Balancing the needs of family and profession is a ongoing challenge. I am not talking about the struggle to be a supper lawyer or a super mom, I am talking about the everyday battle of making ends meet at the office and putting dinner on the table and making sure there is something clean to wear to school the next day. Somehow in the middle of it all, you also have to find time for "you", a way to take a breath and relax, and make sure your sense of humour is still intact. I have done it by making sure that I join organizations that really interest me--that are things I am passionate about--theatre, poetry. When they were younger, my kids came along to these meetings with me, they enjoyed the meal, they learned more than any other kid their age about how to write a poem or do pantomime--we had some time together and yet I fulfilled some social obligations, too. As they have grown older, they have shared these interests--enjoying speech, theater and writing. Now we have things to talk about as friends as well as parent-child. These outside interests have also served me well in my profession. I often use my theatrical skills in making presentations or the courtroom. It has helped me "read" body language so much better--I often pick the Jury Foreperson before they are named. The ability to tell a good story helps a attorney get their case across. I know there are many other facets to balance in one's life, but finding outside interests that are your interests, that give you a zing! in your life has got to be a top priority.
Susan Stevens Chambers ----------------------------------------- I really enjoyed the recent life balance speaker. The day I received your request for comments about life balance, I felt like I had both work and my personal life pretty well under control, so I had lots of ideas to share. Then several crisis projects hit my desk at work and all those good ideas disappeared! I agree with the speaker that it is not so much not having enough time as feeling like you have lost control. I always dread someone walking into my office with a new assignment if it is not something where I can mentally see how I can approach the problem. Here are some of the things I do to attempt to find balance in my life: Teaching Cross Country Skiing Biking and other exercise Lunch Organization Elizabeth J. Hoium, Attorney ----------------------------------------- I define "life balance" as keeping my schedule in my control, where I have sufficient time to spend time with my family; attending school, church and community activities; keep up with my docket at work; exercise (almost) daily; and occasionally participating in an activity on my own. This requires my balancing my roles as family member, Sunday School teacher, attorney, mentor, supervisor, and my own self. I currently am fairly happy with the balance in my life. It is a constant, active struggle to make sure that I am in control of my schedule, and to say no when necessary. The only way that I have come close to achieving balance is first and foremost to have a supportive husband who actively participates in the lives of our children. We share family, financial, and home responsibilities. We have a mutual respect for each of our careers, and always communicate before committing to engagements outside of normal work hours. We consciously minimize any out of town travel, which I have found to be the hardest external factor on our family. The other major factor in balancing my life is to have great child care. Some of the most stressful periods in the last few years was when we needed to make a change in care-givers. I do not have extended family close by, so we have had to get creative, and be willing to pay for good, reliable care. I try to occasionally take stock of my work schedule, and see if I am content with the amount of time that I am putting in at the office and the time for my family. For example, this year instead of giving up something for Lent, I promised my family that I would be home at 6:30 at least three nights during the week, so that we could have dinner together as a family. My kids liked it so much, they (and I) decided I should keep it up even after Lent. Another major factor to life satisfaction is to exercise daily. I feel better and can keep up with my kids. I have also added a hobby or two -- signed up for an occasional series of classes at the Science Museum or at our church, and take a dance class on Saturday mornings. I also give back to my community by teaching Sunday School, and helping out at my girls' schools. Professionally, part of the reason that I generally have a balanced life is that I am in private practice and my firm has allowed me a great deal of flexibility with my schedule. I was permitted to go on reduced hours when my children were little. Now that I am back to full-time, as long as I meet my billing goal and deadlines, and am reasonably accessible to my clients, my firm lets me keep my own hours. Further, my firm is very technologically advanced, and I can access the firm network from home, which gives me additional flexibility. I think that one of the best things that MWL can do to assist women trying to balance their lives is to continue to offer the "Professional Parents" group so that there is a network of people available to those needed to make a change (e.g., after the birth of a child), and to continue to offer seminars on how to create a balance in our lives. Also, any advocacy that the organization can do to make the legal profession as a whole more welcoming to women. It is not easy to keep a balanced life, but it is currently working for me. I have been warned by many friends, though, that things may change when I have two teenagers in the house! Ann S. Viksnins -------------------------------- “Beyond the
Daycare Years” by Lucinda E. Jesson
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