The world of work has undergone radical developments in the last few months. We have explored the benefits and hidden secrets of flexible work. We have tried a number of digital communication platforms and virtual tools for remote communication and collaboration.
Forced work from home during the Covid-19 pandemic showed us that what we thought was impossible could actually work. It is true that this forced way of working is not exactly ideal for everyone. What we all experienced exceeded our limits of understanding because we thought working from home was impossible.
’We live in a time of uncertainty because we do not know what will happen, but we do know that the world of work has changed.’
Work from home 5 days a week? How could this way of working work? Before the Covid crisis, some employers allowed their employees to use, for example, 1 day a week of working from home, but most could not imagine that this possibility would prevail during the working week.
The limited freedom of yesterday can lead to the greater freedom of tomorrow.
This newly created situation is an invaluable opportunity to compare the ways of working in the past, the present, but especially in the near future, as one big experiment of new alternative ways of working and collaboration. The new challenge is not how employees should or could work. People experienced significantly extreme times during the pandemic and it was verified that we can trust them, because they themselves found a way to do their work that suited them best. The new challenge therefore becomes finding the best way to ideally coordinate and evaluate diverse work scenarios so that they work to the satisfaction of the individual, the whole team and the organization. It is therefore necessary to focus on individuals actively and meaningfully working together for teams, across departments and for the company as a whole.
We can use the gained experience for a better way of working (together) in the future and a better integration of work and private lives. Indeed, if we learn to effectively apply new skills and ways of working / collaboration from anywhere, the existing way of working could lead to much greater flexibility, openness and freedom. How to do it? Try the 168-hour rule.
The 168-hour rule
The secret to the future of working / collaboration from anywhere is in the balance between “life, time, energy and attention” given to aspects of life such as (work, family, health and fun) in accordance with your individual values.
Fortunately, there is a simple rule to achieve this. This is the “168-hour rule”, which is the number of hours in a week that you divide equally into identical time sections, nothing more. The only challenge is how you choose to spend your time. To be balanced and based on values and satisfaction.
Balance
Your 168 hours are not just about work-life balance. This sentence says that we either work or live. The pursuit of life balance means that we will devote our time as we would any other precious resource, with the goal of spending the time that matters most.
Self-reflection
You will never know your values unless you are fully aware of “yourself”. Therefore, start each new day with self-reflection, a 15-minute exercise in which you ask yourself a few basic questions: What are your values? What do they mean? What is their meaning and purpose? Over time, the self-reflection becomes a 168-hour self-review. You will receive an answer at the same time. What have I really done in all areas? What did I do on a particular day? If I could live again today, what would I do differently? Feel the present moment.
Intersections
Allocate your 168 hours to your life’s journey or “life intersections”, such as career, family, faith, health, sleep, fun, rest…, and set the “clocks” for them. The goal is to track how you spend your time. While there are daily variations, patterns emerge over the course of a few weeks to show what you are doing more and less of, and where you need to adjust your time.
Self-confidence
No one achieves a perfect balance. Knowing how we spend our time is the only way to avoid unwanted “surprises”. When we get out of sync, we spend a lot of time in one area and fall significantly behind in others. We suddenly realize that our health is not what we want, or that people around us complain that we are not with them. We postpone visiting a loved one because we have a lot of work and are constantly busy, and then we find out that the one we loved is no longer with us.
Values
Striving for a better balance within 168 hours will help you live a “meaningful and satisfied life”. You will reap the rewards of living a value-based life while inspiring and motivating others to do the same.
Many people have no idea what their life should be like. Follow the 168-hour formula so that your values are expressed in the way you really want to live and are living. I believe you can do it.