What makes you successful at work will make you a failure at home. And what makes you successful at home will make you fail at work.
What makes you successful at work? It’s productivity. Success comes from getting a lot of the right stuff finished. You get in, get your work done, and get home.
It seems obvious, but we don’t live that way. Instead most of us think that hours worked is what creates success. But I’ve never heard of a business failing because its employees or leadership didn’t work 5 or 10 hours extra every week. Businesses usually fail because of decisions made, not hours worked.
When we equate hours at work with success it causes us to fail at home.
Hours @ WORK ≠ Success
Logging time doesn’t make you successful, it’s how you spend those hours at work.
Productivity @ WORK = Success
The amount of right stuff you get finished is what will move you ahead.
I bet you are thinking it is impossible to get all the stuff done that you need to get finished in 45 hours a week. But rewind to the last vacation you took. What happened the day before you left? You were a superhero! You got an entire week’s worth of work done in one day. Why? You were focused! You didn’t have time to check Facebook, pose for the perfect Instagram moment, talk about the game last night, or debate who should be the next president. You had a job to finish and you were productive.
What if you took that same focused mindset into each day? What could you get accomplished? If you were more focused I bet you wouldn’t have to work 60 hours a week.
What makes you successful at work will make you a failure at home. You can’t take a productivity mindset into your most treasured relationships.
Productivity @ WORK = Success
Productivity @ HOME ≠ Success
Imagine lining up your family in a row and saying, “I know I’ve been absent these last couple of months with work, but let’s catch up. Everyone has 15 minutes to fill me in on what’s been going on…Go!…Good chat! Let’s do it again next quarter.”
Productivity @ HOME ≠ Success
So what does = success @ home?
Hours @ HOME = Success
You can’t plan when a child will open their heart to you. You can’t plan when a child will need a shoulder to cry on or someone to listen to them. I bet some of your most precious moments and treasured photos weren’t on vacation, but instead were things that just happened randomly that melted your heart.
The only way you captured those moments was because you were present.
Building a strong marriage, a strong family, or a strong friendship all require one forgotten ingredient…hours. Hours you don’t have available to invest if you aren’t being productive @ work.
It’s a myth that your kids want quality time or at least the way we think of quality time. Quality time isn’t killer vacations, going out to eat, or sitting in the bleachers all weekend long. The quality time most kids need can be as simple as being tucked into bed and a peaceful morning before they join a rushed world. Instead most kids get yelled at to…”hurry up and get into bed”…”hurry up and get out of bed for school”…”hurry up and get in the car we are going to be late for…” All because we don’t have hours @ home.
Having hours @ home lets you have an evening routine. It enables family dinner where everyone can connect and talk about their day. You can actually play a game together. What do you wish you could do with those you love after work?
Family time doesn’t have to be something lost in the modern era. The modern era makes it easier than ever to be productive @ work. (It also makes it easier to get distracted and lose focus too.) So stay focused @ work so you get your job done and get home to spend hours with the ones you are working so hard for.
Remember these 2 formulas and you’ll go far @ home and @ work!
