I just read an article on work-life balance by Rex Huppke. “More balanced life can help you work better.” The Chicago Tribune Feb 16, 2015. It's got me thinking, what does work-life balance mean for those of us in the multifamily industry? As I'm sitting here writing this in my living room with my son playing Call of Duty next to me (I know, I know, I'm a terrible mom) it occurs to me that I could probably use a little better balance myself. 

With the exception of checking my emails & occasionally working on a project, I'm one of the ones that work Monday-Friday, with weekends free. You Regionals, you know what it's like to be on call 24-hours a day, 7 days a week. In a world where the majority of action happens on the weekends, many positions may clock out Friday afternoon, but that doesn't stop the work. So for them and in particular, for our Regionals, the concept of work-life balance must be harder.

The author of the article talked about the four major areas of your life and to very deliberately analyze how your time is really spent and what you can do to change it. But in an industry where weekend traffic and middle of the night resident emergencies are fairly normal, we can't always manage this.

So what's the solution for us in multifamily?  Write down a chart? Do yoga? Get off the grid one weekend a month? Don't ask me, I'm the one typing this in the living room with my son. I'm definitely not the expert here.