Try This Work-Life Integration Activity

Wendy Hauser, DVM, assistant vice president of veterinary relations for Crum + Forster Pet Insurance Group, provides a guide through this simple exercise on finding where key components of your life overlap.

“So when we think about work-life integration, I like to think of it as whole-life integration. We have our self-management components and we have our environmental management components. When we're trying to figure out how we're going to integrate our life together there is 1 activity that I find particularly helpful and I've done it as a participant and I've also coached it as a presenter. I call it the 4 circles exercise.

So, I would ask you to get out a piece of paper and to draw 4 circles on that piece of paper. But make them vary in sizes based on what you believe the most important aspects—what you value most in your life. And so for instance, when I draw mine, work is about this big, family is this big, community is about this big, and self is about this big—not really great circles, but use your imagination. And then what you do, so you have the sizes based on how you value the different areas of life domain. And then you take those circles and integrate them and overlap them to show where you actually have overlap in your life. So, when you take a look at my work circle and you take a look at my community circle, they really overlap significantly. And the reason that they do overlap significantly is a lot of my community is based on my veterinary connections and my veterinary relationships. And so that's my preferred pool to play in. So there can be a lot of overlap. So you can see where there is overlap.

The next step to the activity is to list the values, the interests, the actions, and the results that you want to see out of each of those domains. So start and keep it simple. Choose 3 different values or purposes or results that you would like to see for work, and for community, and for home, and for self. And once you get those listed, look for ways that you can integrate your circles together. So the way that I actually overlap the family and the work aspect was I taught a class in my kids' school when they were in middle school on veterinary medicine. My daughter took the class. It was a way to combine my love of education, creating change, and making a difference and a way of being connected. So there are ways that we can think about our work not as being separate but as being an integrated part of our life.

And how do you create overlap? There is a lot of opportunity when you start thinking about it.”