Crossing the Fine Line in Our Work/Life Balance

If you’re like us, you love your business. You started out on your own and at one point or another, it became a bit of, well…an obsession. There are a lot of times when we lost track of how to have lives outside of work.

One very good friend of ours ran a successful business that involved multiple clients and lots of tasks, and he refused to hire anyone until he absolutely needed it. His girlfriend joked that he would “never take a vacation, just move to an exotic location to keep working,” and it showed. He shared seemingly incredible photos to share to Instagram, but in almost every shot of a beach, every image of a beautiful park, you could catch a glimpse of his MacBook in the corner.

We’ve all caught ourselves doing something similar so we’ve even tracked its evolution through time. We like to call it, “The Bad Communication at Dinner Effect” or B-CADE.

B-CADE in the 1990s was when a business owner would constantly check their pagers to see what was happening. In the early 2000s that same business owner would look down to see if they missed a call or a text from a client. Since that time, they now look down at a smartphone to check for email, missed calls, texts, missed facetimes, Facebook messages, Twitter direct messages, Instagram direct messages, missed Skype calls… basically every update available.

Th next level of B-CADE is, of course, the hide-your-phone game. Women can keep it nearby in their purse, but men usually have to get creative. Hiding a phone in your inside jacket pocket, on your leg just under the table and sometimes poorly under the napkin on the table are just a few tricks. That’s probably the origin of wearable and edge technology.

Samsung Galaxy Edge phones are actually angled so you can see your messaging come through on the side without having to turn it over…that’s pretty sneaky, right? Another advancement in B-CADE technology is the smart watch. Now, we can see every message by looking right at our stylish watch. You tell yourself that your date will simply think you’re checking the time for your movie or dinner reservation or the babysitter’s curfew — unless the evening is going poorly anyway — even if they figure out your latest distraction, it’s less obvious than checking your phone.

Joking aside, being a business owner takes dedication, and it can be stressful to try to balance work and personal priorities. The work never stops and communications technology today is designed to keep you on high-alert at all times…despite your best intentions. But it’s important to remember to keep a clear line between your work life and shift the focus during the small amount of time that you give yourself to enjoy anything else.

If you’re suffering from chronic bad communication at dinner or B-CADE to keep all the plates spinning, we recommend outsourcing some of your time-consuming IT work and worries to a great firm that can allow you a relaxing and peaceful dinner at least a couple of times a week.

There is a very fine line between your work life and personal life as a business owner – and we know that you face daily challenges in crossing it to find your balance. Even we are guilty of sneakily looking at our phones and not paying attention during dinner…but you can make the line more visible when you shift your IT troubles to a partner.