"Balancing Acts" Fast Company, Feb-Mar 1999 by: Anna Mudio

Nervous break downs, job burn out, and social burn out seem to becoming more and more common to people in the work place. The causes for each person are very different. One thing that everyone must strive for is blance. Work is a part of your life and you can not be consumed by it. The question was asked of ten business people "How do you create balance in your life?".

One response by David Lanford, Direct of Advance Technology for Dell Computer Corp, was "I often hear people proudly claim that they work 100 hour weeks. How can a person really be effective for 100 hours?". I really believe his statement is very true. People that make this statement lack two things: a social and family life, and the ability to manage work habits effectively.

Without a social and family life which blance with work, people tend to use work as an escape from their social problems. They tend to be workaholics. Eventually the stress of work and lack of a social life leads to mental breakdowns and other mental problems.

People that claim to work consistantly more than 50 hours a week need to evaluate their work productivity. How productive you are is more important than how many hours you work. Your objective needs to be acheiving maximum performance. Long hours consistantly leads to job burnout.

The long hours and inability to separate work and family are two big problems for farms. Many farmers work consistantly 60+ hours a week. Work becomes their life. Add in financial stress and you have the makings of job burnout and mental health problems.

Many farms are trying to get bigger and have more employees so they can have time off. I think this is good for their mental health and for their operation.

Breaks away from their farm can help them look at their farm in a different light. If they never get away from the farm they tend to miss out on what other operations are doing and not look objectively at their situation. they may be able to learn something away from the farm that could be applied to help their farming operation.

Farmers need to get away from their farms and ask themselves periodically if this is the way they want to live. If not, they may see a better way to run their operaiton to balance with their goals in life.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 1999

Answers

Bill Berning,

This article has been out here for a while. Sorry for the delay.

It is said that balance is essential for an effective and pleasing life. This article provides much food for thought and reflection. Your observations on the farmer are appropriate.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 1999