Peter Sorgenfrei argues that "work-life balance" is misleading; instead, embrace "work-life integration" where personal and professional tasks overlap. Set clear temporal boundaries like no work calls before 8 am or after 8 pm, then communicate them explicitly to family and your team so everyone knows your priorities.
This whole idea of work-life balance is a misnomer because there is no balance. It's more like work-life integration, isn't it? We're constantly near our phones. We're constantly doing something that relates to our business, our job, while at the same time, we're also constantly doing something that's related to our personal lives, private lives, whether it's looking at some interior decoration stuff on Instagram or whether it's planning a holiday or whether it's Ordering some food to be delivered later in the week while we're at work. So, when I meet clients that are struggling with work-life balance, first, we talk about work-life integration and how to marry the two without them detracting from each other. And the way that you do that is you start setting some boundaries and some rules around what you will and will not do. For me personally, I will not look at my phone and do work-related stuff before 8 o'clock in the morning. And I also will not look at my phone and do work-related stuff after 8 o'clock in the evening. Most days, mind you, I actually don't work that late in the evening and I don't start that early either. But each person's situation is different. So having some rules around when is work time and when is personal time is a place to start. The second thing to do is to realize that during work hours, you will be doing personal stuff and during personal hours, you will be doing work-related stuff. And that's fine too. The main point here is to not let it interfere with your relationship with others. I think that's the most important point I try to impart when I meet founders or CEOs who are struggling with this. Do not engage with your work stuff when you're in front or with your family. Try to communicate to them saying, hey, I need to do this at this point, or rather, I choose to do this at this point. That's maybe a better way of putting it with yourself and with them. So I'm going to go somewhere else and do that, whether it's a different area of your house or your apartment or whether it's in an office. But being very clear with the people around you saying, at this point, I'm making this choice to do this. It does 2 things. One, it actually helps you not make the choice because you realize in the moment what's important to you, which is being with the people you're with. And 2, it communicates clearly to the outside world that you're going to do something else. You're going to put your priority and your focus somewhere And that sounds harsh, but it's actually helpful, right? Because imagine this. Imagine you're sitting with your— if you have kids, you're sitting with your children and they want your attention. They want to do something with you and you're looking at your phone and you're not paying attention. What do you teach them? Well, you teach them that they're not important. You teach them that they cannot get your attention. But if you communicate clearly saying, Daddy will be here for you to do this now. And then you do it. And then at another time you say, unfortunately, Daddy will have to go do something else now. So you will have to do something on your own now. Right. So you start talking to them about the things that you need to do. I mean, again, this may sound really harsh to a lot of people who have children. I can't reject my children. No, you can't. But you are, and you probably do it more than you know. Anyway, this can go on and on forever. I just wanted to chat a little bit about that. Um, I've recently launched this new thing called the CEO Circle. Uh, you can find it at circle.petersorgenfrei.com. It's essentially an 8-week, uh, mastermind program for CEOs in which we'll cover topics like the relationship with yourself, the relationship with others, uh, how to manage your board, your investors, uh, how to effectively run a team and motivate a team, things like that. All topics that are top of mind of the best-performing founders and CEOs that I've met over the last couple of years that we've now put into a concentrated 8-week peer-involved program called the CEO Circle. Again, you can find it at circle.petersorgenfrei.com. We'll talk a lot about balance there. We'll talk a lot about work-life integration. And I hope you will join me in the program and see how we can evolve together.
