by Christopher Piehler
I started working from home a few months ago, and my initial reaction was bliss. I live in Los Angeles, where drivers routinely die of old age while searching for a parking spot, so any way of staying out of the car feels like a victory.
Instead of spending 90 minutes each weekday wearing out my brakes and despising my fellow motorists, I now commute from the bedroom to the home office in approximately 10 seconds. Instead of packing a lunch every morning and washing Tupperware every night, I forage in the refrigerator any time I’m feeling peckish. If I plan my meals properly, I don’t even have to use dishes anymore.
As I have settled into my new routine, though, I have struggled more than I expected with that scourge of the modern professional: “work/life balance.” When I was required to travel to a different building to do my work, I left my work when I left the building. But now I am never more than 10 seconds from my computer and all the unread e-mails and unedited manuscripts it contains. I may spend less time getting to work, but I spend more time with work looming over me. So what should I do about that?
I ask this question here in the pages of Orthodontic Products because I have always been impressed with the work/life balance of the orthodontists I know. The overwhelming majority of them see patients 4 days a week and balance that with one administrative day. Not only do they have variety in the type of work they do from one day to the next, but they manage to balance that work with travel, hobbies, and giving back to their communities.
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And family. More than any other professional group I know, orthodontists work with (or at least are in the same field as) their families. This gives them a huge leg up in the quest for work/life balance.
What better way to guarantee that you bond with your dad or daughter than to collaborate in creating a smile? And what better way to know that you can trust your business partner than by sharing a good portion of the same genes?
Has your work/life balance shifted during the past couple of years? If so, what are you doing to move it back to equilibrium? I’d love to hear from you at any reasonable time of day—I’m never more than a few steps from the phone.
Christopher Piehler
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