I am a day late with this post. It was a crazy week at Fivecat Studio and the weekend was packed with activities for the kids. (Have you ever gone fox hunting with a HAM radio?)
Life lately has become one long busy day after another, running from project to project, trying to keep all the balls in the air. Even my nights have been preoccupied with priorities. Hence this late post. (Despicable Me 2 preempted much of my Sunday night writing time.)
Living an Integrated Life
Much of the current business buzz is focused on living a balanced life. I no longer try to live a “balanced life”. Having a studio at home allows me to have a much more desirable “integrated life”.
At times the priorities with my family are more important than the priorities with my firm. At other times the firm is most important. Although I keep formal 9 to 5 business hours and I work very hard during those hours, the flexibility I have to be available for my kids any time I see fit, allows me to be fully focused on my family as needed and to fulfill my purpose as a dad.
Balance vs. Integration
As small firm architects, “balance” should not be our goal. True balance is unrealistic. If we stack up our families and personal activities on one side of the scale of life, and on the other side, we shovel on our responsibilities as architects and business owners, we set up a very delicate situation. If life is so finely tuned that the teeter totter is in perfect harmony, the first time that an unexpected demand pulls us from one side to the other, everything else on the scale will come tumbling down.
A Benefit of Being a Small Firm Architect
Balance is difficult. Integration is flexible. An integrated life is mixed with work and play and everything in between.
Starting and running a small firm requires sacrifice. Hours are long and you only get paid if you are out there finding the next job. As tough as building a better business may be though, the benefits of leading our own firms make the sacrifice well worth the pain.
Integration is one such benefit of self employment and running our own small firms. It’s unlikely that integration can be accomplished when working at a larger firm with traditional corporate rules and structures.
Do you live an integrated life? Share your thoughts on this post? What other benefits are there to running your own small firm?
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Photo Credit: Shutterstock / Andris Torms
Encouraging post. Thank you.
This is the entire reason I went into business for myself. I just didn’t see how I could continue working 50-70 hours a week for someone else and be able to raise a family – especially not with a spouse who works the same way. I’m not going to say I work fewer hours as principal of a solo practice, but since I call the shots, I can work at the library while the kids are doing research for a project, or at a table in the lounge during (fill in the blank) lessons instead of worrying that I’m not “at the office” from 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. Living an integrated life, the office is where I am.
This is a great post – thanks for sharing the term “integrated life.” I gave up on the idea of “having it all” and “work-life balance” the day my son was born – the reality is that a balanced life is one that is stressful and restricting on both fronts. I’ve been thinking about the way I’ve approached the last year now that I’ve started my own firm, and an integrated lifestyle is the perfect description. Thank you for making time to share this post and all the other info on your blog – so happy I stumbled upon it!
Integrated life. That’s the key word..as a small business owner, I get to set my own hours, and that does mean occasional ten hours on a Sunday or a random Wednesday off. Work -life balance is never possible with two kids in school and their extra curricular activities. But, yes, its a very integrated life – sometimes it’s stressful to wake up early in the morning just so that I can take an hour off around pick up time, but when the car pulls over in the school’s pick up drive way, that face lighting up with happiness on seeing me is priceless 🙂
After 17 years in large corporate firms, the past year as a solopreneur has been wonderful. Yes, it is tough winning projects, handling all the business end, and doing great work to keep clients coming back. But, it is also a gift to be able to run to the gym mid-afternoon, or pick up groceries, or just take a break and sit in the sunshine for half an hour. Integrated Life … is the only life worth living for me. Thanks so much for your blog.
Lisa, Lisa, MJ and Deborah, how did you manage? I’m “in the same boat”, wanting to start my own small practice (residential architecture) after 15 years working for different companies. You reach a point in your life, where you realize “wait a minute, I can do this”, even make it better
This post lit a fire under me to start taking the steps to see if I can actually start my own firm, along with help from your other wonderful posts and podcasts Mark. I’d be interested in connecting with some of the other moms out there who have either recently started this process or are considering it as well.
Integrated life, blah hahahah, whats that? High highs and low lows! Balance is more in your mindset then the actual division of hours during the day. That’s the great thing about being the master of your own destiny you decide what’s right for you no one else. I tell most of my friends that are either successful or struggling that the ability to be grateful for where you are right now is the most powerful tool you’ve got to reach balance. I appreciate when I hear other small business owners/business partners say that they think they might be a little obsessed and they’re not balancing the rest of their life. I pull out a quote I wrote down in college and recite it:
“Playing life’s game to the fullest requires taking a risk. Without risk, life has little emotion, little that can be counted as exhilaration or fulfillment. And yet, the person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, and ultimately becomes nothing. “
Mark, good post. We’re all still trying to figure this out. It’s encouraging to know we’re not alone. I wouldn’t choose any other path right now.
Yup. Going into practice for myself wasn’t motivated by a burning desire to be entrepreneurial. It was the default: how could I possibly hope to achieve an “integrated life” with the expectation of having my butt in a chair 40+ hours per week while working for someone else? How could I go to my son’s track meets or daughters’ end-of-project presentations? How could I exercise? How could I ride my motorcycle in the middle of a beautiful spring day? Now I do all that, but the price to pay is that I am ALWAYS working because me and my business are so intertwined. And yet, somehow, it feels like I’m not working, but getting paid quite handsomely to do what I love. And it’s a delight.
Nailed it. You just described what I’ve been doing for the past 18 years. We started doing it working out of the home, but as my daughter grew up, and technology got more flexible, it became easier and easier. Virtual phone system means no checking the office line voicemail, wifi almost everywhere means its easy to keep in communication when working out of the office, and smart phones made it easy to keep the office in your pocket when you can’t be toting a computer.
Some people talk about this kind of technology running over their lives. They probably work a full day and then have their cell phone badgering them off hours. I have to say growing into it has helped me control it, and integrate it if you will. If feels completely natural to me. Its not work time and home time – its just life, doing what needs to get done, and enjoying both work and home more. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
“With great flexibility for working hours, a desire to work at the highest & best capacity possible, while maintaining a balanced healthful attitude to daily living … ” Michael Scarmack. So this means for an integrated sole practitioner to practice to sleep, eat, exercise, serve, work, garden, drink water, communicate, live and love at the studio, indoors and out of doors, each day, treading lightly on the land, rarely in the air, an occasionally in the water.
Balance is a necessity, otherwise, you work too much, sit too long, gain too much weight, have too much anxiety… and the years escape. Perhaps this is a blog on semantics ? Thanks for sharing a day late or not, I like your “attitude” !
Intergrated….and interwoven I preffer…working as a fulltime professional…as a mom..with kids always…around after school..managing home office together..is tasking at times..butwhatI reallyenjoyis between hectic work there is time for a small break…with kids..it keeps me on my toes..and a day with less work turns into a fun day…
Life balancing and our attitude comes here