Everyone needs to build a balanced life

For the last couple of weeks, my work/life balance has been heavily skewed in favor of work.

And as strange as it may sound, I did that on purpose.

I wrote recently about the fun and folly of driving with my family to Texas. What I didn't mention in that column is that, the day after we arrived in Houston, I jumped on a plane and flew back to Salt Lake City.

That probably sounds crazy. It sure felt that way at the time. But we have several other trips planned for this summer, and I have a limited number of vacation days. Since I'm not a time-off hoarder, but usually take my vacation as I earn it, I typically spend just a few days in Houston with family each summer, then leave my wife and children there while I come back to Utah to work.

This year, my time as a temporary bachelor happened to coincide with a marked increase in my workload. One of my colleagues was out of the office for a while, so I picked up some of his duties in addition to my own.

Doing so translated into some predictably long days for me. Even though it's only been about 10 months since I moved from the print side of our operation to my job with deseretnews.com, I've grown accustomed to working in the digital world. Taking on duties back in the dead-tree realm was challenging and time-consuming, as I found I had forgotten a few of the things that I used to be able to do practically in my sleep.

Fortunately, I also remembered many of the basics, or I really would have been lost. Building a newspaper is kind of like riding a bike, I guess. Once you learn how, you never really forget.

Anyway, all of those extra hours at the office meant fewer hours at home. Usually that would bother me quite a bit, because I would miss spending time with my family — and feel guilty about that.

But in this case, I knew I would miss my family even when I was at home. In fact, the house is so quiet without my wife to talk to and my four children running around that being there without them sometimes makes me miss them even more.

At least, that's what I was thinking to myself during my first week in solitary. But as the second week dragged on, my perspective started to change.

I found that, as I pulled into the driveway each night and trudged into the house, I was mentally and physically exhausted. Most of the little projects I had hoped to tackle while I had the place to myself went unfinished. All I wanted to do was read a little, watch some mindless entertainment on television and go to bed.