Off Balance

June 20, 2011
Why is work-life balance so difficult to achieve? Because, says Kelly (The Dream Manager), the very concept is fatally flawed. The attempt to "balance" life against work necessarily pits the two against each other; in reality, we do not have two lives, one personal and one professional, but one life that contains both aspects. Better to seek satisfaction rather than balance, and Kelly presents the three philosophies (working to become the best version of yourself, practicing virtue, and self-control) that will help you get there. He urges readers to get in touch with their dissatisfaction, to ask the big questions, and to follow his five-step plan to personal and professional satisfaction: assessment, assigning priorities, developing core habits, and performing both a weekly strategy session and a quarterly review. Though the ideas are solid, they're thin on the groundâreaders looking for a more substantive treatment will be left wanting.

September 1, 2011

Management consultant Kelly upends the myth of "having-it-all" and replaces it with a system for personal and professional satisfaction.

For his latest entry in the self-help pantheon, Kelly (Perfectly Yourself: 9 Lessons for Enduring Happiness, 2008, etc.) conducted a survey that found people prefer satisfaction to balance in both the workplace and at home. With this in mind, he set about devising a method to guarantee satisfaction in both work and life: "The promise of this book is to help you design and build a more satisfying life in both the personal and professional arenas. We will do this together by approaching our lives with the strategy and rigor with which the very best companies in the world approach business." Kelly identifies three -isms that erode the fabric of professional and personal lives: individualism, hedonism and minimalism. All, he writes, are anathema to satisfaction. But it's not long before the author recalibrates the conversation entirely, exposing the false divide between work and life. "You cannot have it all," he writes. To that extent, Kelly establishes a set of values-based priorities that readers can use to reshape their life. Breaking it down even further, the author offers a working-priority list. His system may be pragmatic and easily applicable, but he cautions against pitfalls such as depleted energy levels due to long-term dysfunction (anger, fear, anxiousness) and distraction. The final stage of his system is personal and professional accountability, neither of which should be taken lightly.

Supplant time management with the author's strategies to become "the best version of yourselves."

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