Oh, that elusive life-work balance. Everybody is after it, especially entrepreneurs. Some people even succeed.
Among those who seem to have succeeded are six women doctors in Irvine, California. Five of them are mothers and they manage to balance life with their work. They do it by working part-time.
Most Americans do just the opposite — they work full-time and make their lives part-time.
A recent article in the Orange County Register profiles the part-time doctors. One of the interesting nuggets in the story is that by working less, the doctors actually contribute more to their practices. That’s because they can lift their heads up from their work and get out in the community and market their practice:
“The doctors chose part-time work to spend more time with their own children. In the process, they have become great marketers for Irvine Pediatrics because they are out in the community, volunteering at schools and getting to know their neighbors.”
It’s what others have referred to as “working on, not in, the business.”
Hat tip for the link to Bill Weber at the Thinking Big blog.
Stacy Brice
I love that you blogged about this, Anita, and especially that you wrote the line about how most people do their lives part time. Sad, that, isn’t it?
Can it be that funding the American Dream has really come to this?
In my own life, I know quite well about the benefit of taking time away. AssistU has always been successful (as has my life), but never more so than when I finally handed over the reigns to a COO, so that I could focus ON the business, and she could be IN it. We do better when I work less.
I also feel that what’s contributed to both levels of success (personal and professional) is the amount of time I don’t work at all. I never hesitate to take time off during the year, and never work Fridays. Then, I take a sabbatical each year, where I never work during fourth quarter.
Instead, I play, travel, visit friends, sleep, see loads of movies, and refresh my brain. I come back after the new year and everything, on every level, is better than ever.
People have asked me how I manage to do that, and the answer is actually simple: I crafted my business to be bigger than me. In that way, it’s not dependent on my being there all the time, and my going away becomes easy to do.
S