In this episode of The Leader's Kitbag, Ben Morton challenges common misconceptions about work‑life balance and offers a practical framework for leaders. He argues that balance is rarely achieved by measuring days or weeks; instead, it should be evaluated over a longer horizon—about three months—to reveal true patterns of time and energy use. Morton emphasizes that genuine balance stems from clarity about one’s core values, not an even split between work and personal life. He proposes a simple exercise: identify five or six personal core values, then every three months pause to rate on a 1‑to‑5 scale how well you lived up to those values. The score provides data for course‑correction. He likens this process to pilots navigating long flights, using predetermined waypoints (the core values) to make continual adjustments and stay on course. The episode delivers a concise, actionable method for leaders to align their daily actions with what matters most, fostering sustainable work‑life balance over time.
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If you're someone who's striving for better work-life balance, or perhaps feel as though you never quite achieve it, then today's episode of The Leader's Kitbag is for you. Because work-life balance is something we hear and talk about all of the time. Many of us say we want it or chase it even, but I'm not sure how often, if at all, we actually pause and ask ourselves a really important question. What does good work-life balance actually look like for you? I really do get the sense that so many of us are chasing this idea of balance without ever really pausing to define it for ourselves, and that creates all sorts of problems. And I think there are two things that make the pursuit of work-life balance particularly difficult. The first is that we often try and measure it or achieve it over far too short a period of time. It's often the case that we'll look at one week or even a day and then make some sort of judgment about how balanced things have been and whether or not our work-life balance is correct.
But the reality is, leadership and life don't really work like that. On some days, work will absolutely dominate. And on others, family, health, or something else in your personal life might need more of your time and attention.
So for me, work-life balance isn't something to be measured over days and weeks. It's something I look at over a much longer period of time. And for me, that's roughly 3 months, because over that time, you really do start to notice the patterns around how you're spending your time and your energy.
And the second challenge with work-life balance is even more important. You see, you can't really define balance unless you're clear about what matters the most to you. In other words, understanding your core values. Because balance isn't about splitting your time evenly between work and life, or work and everything else. It's about allocating your time and energy so that it's in line with the things that matter the most to you. And that will be different for each of us.
Here's a really simple exercise I use with myself and share with all of the leaders I I coach and train.
So start by getting really clear on your 5 or 6 core values, the things that truly matter the most to you in all aspects of life, not just work. And once you've done that, every 3 months carve out a small period of time to pause and reflect, asking yourself one simple but really powerful question. How well have I done at living up to my core values over the past 3 months? And give yourself a score out of 5. That's not designed as a tool to judge yourself, but just to help you understand where you might be drifting off track. For example, if health is one of your core values, and when you look at it over the past 3 months, you scored yourself a 2 out of 5, then that's data, that's insight that tells you you need to make some changes to course-correct over the coming 3 months. And that way, you can start to get work-life balance over that longer period of time.
The way I tend to think about this is a bit like how pilots navigate on long flights. When a plane flies from London to New York, it isn't perfectly on course. The entire time. In fact, it's slightly off course quite often. But the pilots use predetermined waypoints to make small continual adjustments and bring the aircraft back on track. And I think our values, our core values, can work in exactly the same way. Our values become the waypoints that help guide how we spend our time, energy, and attention.
So, if you are striving for better work-life balance, perhaps the goal isn't a series of perfectly balanced weeks. Perhaps the goal is simply this: to work out and understand what truly matters to you most in life, and course-correct every few months or so to make sure that your energy and focus is going in the right place. That's it for this episode of the Leader's Kit Bag. As always, I hope it's been useful. Look after yourself and those you've got the privilege and responsibility to lead, and until next time, lead on.
