Welcome back (or welcome for the first time. If this is your first time reading this series you might want to start at the beginning of this 12-week series with the poston Work Life IMbalance).

This has been a very interesting series for me to write, especially because things never quite work out as planned. In the first two posts, I talked about being more aware of my decisions to do things and how those decisions also meant that I was deciding not to do things. Kind of like the idea that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. That part is still very, very true. In fact, I’ve found myself really weighing the current options and making much more conscious decisions as to what I’m going to do. I’ve also found myself recording tasks for later accomplishment. This conscious deferral is something that I’ve really failed at in the past, so I believe I’ve taken a step forward. It’s good to know that at least some things aren’t falling through the cracks. In the past I would try to keep everything in my head…all the things I was supposed to do, things I had decided to defer, etc. I’ve finally recognized that I’m forgetting more than I’m remembering, so I’ve taken to using outside systems. I’m still playing with different systems, but I’ll eventually write about the apps, programs, websites, and systems that I’m using and why some things work for me and others don’t.

I also wrote about the 10 Daily Habits of Exceptionally Happy People. My initial plan was to take one habit every week and focus on it. This seemed to dovetail very nicely in my mind, as this was a twelve week program of discovery. It was obvious that I could easily do two things at once.

Stop snickering, you would have probably come up with the same conclusion.

But I’ve realized over the past week that I bit off more than I could chew to keep the discussion coherent. So I’m officially splitting the two journeys of Life IMbalance and the 10 Daily Habits of Exceptionally Happy People into two series. I’m going to shoot for parallel posts, but they may not be exactly parallel. There are going to be some weeks where a habit runs into the next week. There may be other variations between the two sets of 12 items. As in most things in my life, this is a very fluid process of discovery, modification, and rediscovery.

So, today I’m going to focus on my second week of discovery related to Work Life IMbalance.

When I started this series on Life IMBalance, I had no idea of how crazy the teeter-totter of life would actually be. I did know that I was going to be traveling to visit my oldest daughter in NJ, and I would meet one of my other daughters there too (she was coming up from a conference in Washington, DC). I anticipated that there would be a lot of personal stuff, but that I would also get some business work accomplished.

As I was flying out to Newark, NJ, I read an entire book about Evernote, namely Evernote Essentials by Brett Kelly. I often fall asleep on planes or can’t get anything done, but this book grabbed my attention, and before I landed on my second flight, I had wrapped up the entire book. I even highlighted several sections and took notes. Notes that I need to convert into actionable items.

My plan was to go through the book at the airport while waiting for my middle daughter, or at the very least convert the notes in the first day or two after arriving at my oldest daughter’s apartment.

But you know what happens to the best plans…they change. And sometimes change drastically. I had decided that I was going to “let life happen” on this trip and not be so caught up in my need to plan, create schedules, and have a set routine. I’ve always been a planner, and I often get really uncomfortable being spontaneous…so this was going to be a test for me.

On the other hand, my middle daughter is very adventurous. She’s very capable of living in the moment, yet she’s one of the most organized people I know. I had decided to take my cue from her and try out the spontaneous stuff.

Her train was a little bit late, and I had a little bit of difficulty finding where the trains arrive at Newark Liberty Airport…but I got to the train station part of Newark Liberty before she arrived, so I was feeling pretty sure of myself. I even managed to make contact with my oldest daughter who had driven to Newark from her office in Hoboken. In Kansas, we talk about driving in terms of time. When someone says, how far away is Wichita from your house, I answer “Oh, about an hour”. What about Manhattan, KS? It’s about two hours away. Lawrence? Just under three hours.

I learned very quickly that you don’t talk about time in the NYC area in that sense, because it varies based on so many factors. So knowing that her office was “normally 30 minutes from the airport” did me no good that night. First off, that didn’t translate to miles, and “normally” doesn’t really exist in NYC and NJ. She did arrive just as we were ready to be picked up, so it was all good, but the culture shock of travel was very apparent to me.

Then we had to drive into Jersey City so she could run an errand. I tried to ask how far we were going, and she said she honestly didn’t know in either miles or time. It’s a good thing though, because the traffic was terrible, and the distances didn’t matter. At times I felt like we were spending more time going across lanes than making progress towards our destination. As an aside, understand that I grew up in the far out suburbs of Chicago, but we went into the city on a very, very regular basis. We went a couple of times a month for leisure, and my Dad worked on the edge of the city. As a teenager, I worked for his company and I was responsible for driving from the nearest suburbs into downtown to make their daily banking deposit. The money had to be in the bank by 2:00PM sharp, so there were many days when I was racing the clock. I’m used to traffic. I’ve dealt with traffic. But the entire experience in NYC/NJ was still astounding to me.

Nevertheless, we arrived at our destination and my oldest daughter went off to run her errand. My younger daughter said “Let’s walk around the block and see what there is here”. So, with my newfound desire to be spontaneous, I said “Sure”. And off we went. One block became two. Two became four. And pretty soon we’d walked eight blocks, over a couple more, and managed to get ourselves pretty far from the car. Fortunately, we both have a pretty good sense of direction, and we managed to arrive back at the car just as my older daughter finished her errand.

Then we decided to go to dinner. In our little town of Hutchinson, KS there are very few restaurants. The vast majority are either little mom-and-pop places, or chain restaurants. To really go out for “fine dining” we have to travel to Wichita (50 miles or about 50 minutes, remember?), and even then the options aren’t that extensive. In addition to the lack or restaurants, on a weeknight everything closes up fairly early. 9:00PM is pretty late to get a meal, unless you’re willing to go for fast food.

On the other end of the spectrum here in New Jersey, we had so many options we didn’t know what to do with ourselves. There were dozens of restaurants that were open. They were all tiny places with amazing food options. And they seemed to stay open until all hours of the night…even on weeknights. So we made our selection and had the first of many, many amazing meals.

Then we went back to my daughter’s apartment and started to plan the remainder of the week that my middle daughter would be in town. My oldest was pretty tired from her day, but my middle daughter was a bundle of energy. She had also refused to convert to Eastern Time during her 10-day conference, so she kept referring to the time as an hour earlier than it really was. So we investigated all the options that we had and purchased a New York Explorer Pass that would allow us access to seven attractions in and around NYC. Far too late, we went to bed…ending our first day.

Over the next few days we learned to use the bus system. We learned to use the PATH system (combination subway/train). We learned how to navigate around Jersey City, Hoboken, NYC, and the surrounding areas. We figured out that everything took longer to get to than we could imagine. We saw so many people. So many, many people. We heard so many languages. What an utterly fascinating place…full of so much vibrancy!

The sheer number of people, how close everyone would walk to you, how many times you were bumped…these all led to thoughts of pickpockets. I worried that my wallet and I would be separated. I was afraid that my iPhone would leave my pocket. I had concerns that my camera would disappear. Of the three, my iPhone was my biggest concern. I figured that I could replace everything in my wallet. I wouldn’t be happy about it, but it could be done. I could also replace my camera. Again, I wouldn’t be pleased, but it would be possible. While I could replace my iPhone, my bigger concern was that I would be hopelessly lost without out. Not lost in the technological sense, but actually physically lost. I was still very new to the numbering system of the streets and avenues in NYC, and it took me a while to get the hang of things. Without my Maps app, I was constantly making wrong turns. Heck, even with the Maps app (either Apple’s or Google’s depending on the day) I was making wrong turns. I would get turned around and walk a couple of blocks in the wrong direction before backtracking. At one point I managed to walk around Times Square for almost an hour before actually managing to find it. If I would’ve lost my iPhone I would probably still be wandering around NYC.

But nothing bad happened. We had a great time, and through it all I made a vast number of decisions to be where I was and to be with those I’m with. Both decisions allowed me to actually take a break for work life. I firmly set the teeter-totter down on the ground of family time. I recognized that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be with my two daughters and to enjoy the sights, sounds, and tastes of New York City and the surrounding area.

I made the conscious decision to take advantage of everything that was offered to us and not worry about work. And frankly it was quite liberating. I haven’t really been big on vacations for a long, long time. As a kid, my family always had an annual vacation. We would travel somewhere (usually by car) and enjoy a new locale, with no hint of “working from the hotel”. It’s been so long that I wasn’t trying to balance work and travel that I had honestly forgotten what it was like.

I haven’t had much time to spend with my oldest daughter since she graduated from college, and my middle daughter and I are so busy that we don’t spend one-on-one time together very much. This was a great opportunity to spend time with both girls, together and separately, and I grabbed it. And it was exhilarating. They are fascinating people in their own rights, and together they are funny, energetic, and a blast to be around.

I don’t regret for one second taking the time to spend with them. While work piled up a bit at home and at the office, I made the conscious decision that this opportunity would not pass. And I’m so glad that I did.

As I started this post, I realized that I made decision after decision in favor of family time over work, and I was OK with that. I’ll have to swap the teeter-totters’  position at some point, but this week was not the week for that.

So how about you? What decisions did you make to swing the teeter-totter one way or the other? Were you able to consciously control the switches in focus? How did you do?

Make it a great week!