November 2004 · Volume 86 · Number 10 

I Could Work 24 Hours a Day!
by Kenneth Pulskamp
The truth is, I could work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There are enough events, projects, paperwork, e-mails, employees, speeches, and meetings to fill it all up. I want to be successful, as I'm sure all managers do. I want to make a difference in my community. I want to be a leader and a good city manager. People will let us work as much as we want to, but truthfully, people don't respect a workaholic. What people respect is someone with a healthy family life, who stays in shape, who has other interests, and who can be effective in the workplace.
If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves… 
-Lane Kirkland, eminent labor leader
It wasn't too long ago that I was married, with two small children. I had the ability to spend a lot of time at work, and I definitely spent more time at work then than I do now. Somewhat later, as a single parent, still with small children, I had to leave at 5 p.m.-and 5 p.m. did not mean 5:30 p.m. My kids couldn't wait at daycare when it closed, just because I was in a meeting. This time deadline was hard to get used to at first, but I figured out that the workplace did not come to an end if I left the office at 5 p.m. instead of 5:30 p.m.
As city and county managers, it also is incumbent upon us to "model the way" and demonstrate to future generations (and future managers) that balance is a good thing; it's something to aspire to, not to avoid. Part of cultivating the next generation is leading by example.
Five Years Ago
I want you to think back on what you were working on five years ago. Like most of us, I'm sure you had a project you were worried about. Do you remember what it was? Probably not! But I bet if you had a great vacation five years ago, or fell in love five years ago, you would remember that! Keep this in mind when you are thinking about your life's priorities. And who appreciates you? Do bosses reward people for working themselves into an early grave? No, they don't! Personally, I had a wake-up call about appreciation early in my career. I was a 27-year-old deputy city manager in Fresno, California, when I changed jobs and moved to a different city. Six months into my new job, I had to call Fresno for something. The woman who answered the telephone had no idea who I was. It was just six months later! So much for "We'll never forget you!"
Several years ago, a friend who is a city manager was working in a locality that had a lot of problems. He worked seven days a week, 15 and 18 hours a day. He made a lot of changes, took a lot of risks, and truly made a difference in his community. But when he went to the city council and asked for a raise, all they gave him was 2 percent. The reward didn't come close to matching the effort he put forth. Usually, it doesn't.
The lesson here is that if you don't look out for you, who will? Certainly not your boss, and not your coworkers. Now, don't get me wrong! This isn't a message about goofing off more and working less. I appreciate hard work. I work hard, and I expect my employees to work hard. What I don't expect is to see them here night after night, Saturday after Saturday. If I do, it is a red flag to me that something is wrong, that they are not managing their time as they should while at work.
Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.
-M. Scott Peck, author, The Road Less Traveled
Are You Balanced?
I consider myself to be fairly balanced. I've been told by my employees and peers that they think I lead a reasonably balanced life. I go to the gym, I spend time with my kids, I take vacations, I spend time with friends, and I work. Jobs like ours are enormously demanding. But other areas of our lives can be equally demanding. Think of your life as having different components. You have work, family, religion, friends, education, hobbies, exercise … and you probably have heard yourself or someone close to you say, "I wish I could spend more time with each of these."
However, if you view your life in its totality, as a whole, and not look at each individual component, you will soon realize that you cannot spend more time on each component. What you can do is maximize your time on each. What this means is that when you are at work, you work! When you are spending time with your kids, don't sit in front of the television, telling your kids to shut up. Don't go out to dinner, only to sit and worry about work. Be in the moment. Be vigilant! You must constantly work on, reflect on, and keep in mind what is truly important.
Techniques for Balance
After more than 30 years of working, I've discovered these techniques for keeping my life in balance:
1. Get up 20 minutes early, and take a walk with your kids. It's easy. It's real. It's enjoyable and reaps rewards. Plus, you squeeze in a little exercise and some one-on-one time with your children.
2. Next time you go to a funeral, reflect! As we get older, it seems like we attend more funerals. I try to take this time to reflect on what I am doing (have I told my loved ones that I love them?), and I look back at how I've spent my years and my time.
3. Be in the moment! I try hard to really and truly be in the moment. In this age of multitasking, we tend to lose that "in the moment" thing. We're typing out e-mails while talking to someone, we're on our cellphones while doing other things, and something gets lost here. Something called focus.
4. Create daily rituals. Whenever possible, I sit down to dinner with my kids. We take morning walks. We have cuddle time! The kids really look forward to it, and so do I.
5. Help generate a family-friendly workplace. Don't sit back and hope that someone else will do this. Think about how you can work toward flexible scheduling, job sharing, telecommuting (where feasible), compressed workweeks, evening child care for evening work, time off for soccer games and ballet recitals, and pretaxed dollars for daycare, to name a few ideas.
6. Use your lunch hour to go to the gym. I'm a morning person, but I know that some are not. Consider using your lunch hour to work out. This could even be as simple as keeping some running shoes under your desk and taking a half hour's brisk walk every day at lunch. It's a great way to get your exercise in without taking time away from the family.
7. Focus on those tasks that are truly important. Don't be one of those people who say that your kids are your number-one priority in life yet who don't know their favorite colors or who their best friends are.
8. Live close to work. One of the best things I ever did was move to a place only five minutes away from work. This enables me to do things like come home for lunch and eliminate commuting time, and it has improved my overall quality of life considerably.
9. Don't sweat the small stuff. If you can't remember the project that kept you up nights five years ago, chances are no one else will either. Keep this in mind with your current projects.
10. Live your life! Don't keep waiting for your life to start. Don't keep saying if only, if only . . . if only I could get that promotion or new job, if only I could lose 20 pounds, if only I could find a great partner. You're wasting time! Chances are, the next great thing isn't going to make your life any better at all! This kind of satisfaction comes from within.
At the ages that many of us in the management profession have reached by now, it's time to realize that our lives are our own and that we probably won't be making anything radically different out of them. In other words, you probably won't become a nun or priest and move to a third-world country to minister. You probably won't shave your head and live in Tibet, and you probably won't change professions and join a circus.
The kinds of changes you can make in your life, however, can substantially improve the quality of your life and advance you on the path to success, both personally and professionally. I encourage you to make a list of the things in your life that are out of balance and that you would like to change. Then, map a course for changing them, one by one. You will find that this process can yield significant benefits and real changes in your life. 
Kenneth Pulskamp is city manager, Santa Clarita, California (KPULSKAMP@santa-clarita.com). The original version of this article was published in the City Managers Department Newsletter published by the League of California Cities.