5 Ways to Master the Work-Life Balance

Have you ever had to check whether an Outlook reminder for “Anniversary” referred to your marriage or your career? Do you measure the age of your children in fiscal quarters? Does thinking about Monday morning leave you searching for a bathtub to plug your toaster into? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you may need these five ways to master the work-life balance.

#1. Don’t Have a Life

Balancing your personal and professional lives can be made significantly easier if you simply get rid of the former. Nothing feels more satisfying after a 20-hour jam sesh at the office than heading home to catch a tight four hours of sleep like Dracula retiring to his coffin. Once you learn to abandon the concept of leisure and treat sleep as a biological utility to be used only when absolutely necessary, you’ll find hours in your day you never thought you had!

#2. Love Working from Home? Try Home-ing from Work!

Do your kids keep you from being productive when working out of the house? Is work causing you to miss out on developmental milestones in your children’s lives (like their first steps or discovering that not all self-administered haircuts are created equal)? Get the best of both worlds by home-ing from work! When you home from work, fulfilling your parental responsibilities is just a Skype call away! After all, who needs face time when you can FaceTime?

Home-ing from work offers a number of benefits beyond its obvious convenience. No longer will you have to gamble on “haircut” the next time your wife asks if anything looks different — network connectivity issues have got you covered! Your kids can’t judge you for googling the answers to their third grade math homework via webcam. You can even see the mess waiting for you when you finally do get home.

Once you get past the initial expense of rigging your house with more cameras than a correctional facility, you’ll find that pulling double duty as a parent and professional has never been easier!

#3. “Forgetting” to Disable Your Email Auto-Responder

Mistakes. They’re part of what make us human beings. Sometimes, a well-placed “mistake” is the only thing keeping you a civil human being (as opposed to snapping and waging war on the Keurig machine while foaming at the mouth). “Forgetting” to disable your vacation auto-responder can buy you a few hours of blissful counterproductivity until Janice from accounting finds you ugly-crying in the maintenance closet with a half-eaten jar of Nutella and no spoon.

#4. Donate Your Children to Medical Science

Every minute spent watching your children twirl in clumsy circles at dance recitals, gain a false sense of confidence in their hand-eye coordination at tee-ball games, or explore the depths of their nasal cavities with a crayon is a minute you could spend boosting the bottom line. Donating your children to medical science can free up more time for late nights at the office and date nights with your spouse. Making a generous donation for the greater good while raking in that sweet, sweet tax deduction is a win-win situation no matter how you look at it.

#5. Submit to Incarceration

Surrendering yourself to the state via intentional incarceration is a great way to take the stress of balancing personal and professional responsibilities out of your hands. Entering into the American prison system can be a piece of cake (especially if you stole the cake). Finding your Zen becomes significantly easier with one hour a day of mandatory recreation and, when you’re hammering out license plates for 25 cents a day, the only time you’ll take your work home with you is when you need to fashion a shiv.