“How Do You Balance Work and Family?” - Doug Barr

As we spend this week thinking about when to "clock out," it's worth hearing what Doug has to say about balancing our priorities between work and family. Often when we clock out from work, it's tempting to clock out from all of our responsibilities—including those we have to our relationships and our families. As Doug says, work can be such "a demanding mistress" that we feel like there's not much left to give at the end of the day.

But aren't our families a large part of what we're working for in the first place? If we don't invest in our family lives, we're cutting ourselves off from the relationships that sustain us, not only through the work day, but every day.

Transcript: Balancing work life and family life is a real challenge. So, how do you balance it? Very intentionally. We book tickets to go somewhere on a trip, and once they're booked you can't get out of it. We book a date night every week. We book time around meals to be together. We're one of the few families that actually eats at home, probably more meals than we eat out. You just have to program it in; you have to schedule it in, because it's important. If you're intentional about it you can make it work.

Work is a demanding mistress, it really is a demanding mistress, and the way to get out of that is to recognize you're not just the title. You're not just the CEO. There is life after Goodwill. There's life before it and there's going to be life after it and there's life during it. Fortunately, I'm married to someone who helps me with that.

Want to hear more? You can find our conversation with Doug over at the High Calling Youtube Channel.