Ashley Hanson

The Four Burners Theory for Work-Life Balance You can think of striking a work-life balance using a theory known as The Four Burners. It’s very simple. All you do is imagine that your life is a stove with four burners. Each of the four burners represents one significant sector of your life. ● ● ● ● Burner One — Family Burner Two — Friends Burner Three — Health Burner Four — Work According to this theory, you can’t be successful until you shut off one of the four burners. To be extremely successful, shut off two of the four burners. Four Burners, Three Views My first reaction, when presented with this theory was to try to find a way to work around it. Maybe I could succeed with all four burners going, or I could combine my family and friends in a single category. Perhaps I could put work and health on a single burner. Sitting day in and day out is unhealthy, but maybe a standing desk could help. I can hear you thinking from here.​ Believing that you’re going to get healthy simply because you bought a standing desk for your work is just like thinking you’re a rebel because you didn’t fasten your seatbelt that one time. I came to the startling realization that I was trying to find ways around the problem of the four burners because I really didn’t want to think about the real issue. In life, you have trade-offs. If you plan to do extremely well in your personal life and work, your health and friends might have to suffer. If you want to succeed in your marriage or as a parent and be healthy, you may have to step back from your career. Sure, you’re able to split your time equally between the four burners and keep them all running, but you’ll also have to accept that you most likely won’t be able to reach your full potential going this route. You’re forced to make a choice. Do you want to live an unbalanced life, but perform very high in one area? Or, would you like to have a balanced life that doesn’t fully maximize your potential in any area? As for what is the best way to fix these work-life balance issues, I’m not 100% sure. I don’t have any concrete way to figure it out, but there are three general ways you can think about this theory. 1 — Outsource Some Burners It’s common for us to outsource small parts of our lives. We don’t want to cook, so we pick up fast food or go out. We don’t have time for laundry, so we drop them at the dry cleaners. We take the PC into the repair shop, so we don’t have to do it ourselves. Outsourcing these small areas of your life let you spend your time on other pursuits. Could you apply this to your life and focus on three burners while outsourcing one? The best example is work. For thousands of people, work is the hottest burner of the four. It’s the last burner to switch off, and people dedicate the most time to it. If you think about it, business owners and entrepreneurs outsource their work burner by hiring employees. Another example would be parents dropping their kids off at daycare. Calling this outsourcing may seem very unfair, but it’s true. As a parent, you’re paying someone else to watch your kid and keep your burner lit while you concentrate on one of the other three. Outsourcing’s main advantage is that you don’t have to shut a burner off without dedicating a huge amount of time to it. But there is a disadvantage with removing yourself. A high number of creators, artists, and entrepreneurs get bored if they have nothing to work on every single day. Every parent I’ve talked to would rather spend time with their kids than pay someone else to watch them. Outsourcing will let you keep that burner running, but is it still meaningful? 2 — Seasons of Life The second way of managing each of the four burners is by breaking your life up into seasons. What if you divided your life and focused on certain areas instead of looking for the perfect work-life balance? As you age, the different burner’s importance will change. When you’re in your 20s or 30s, you may not have kids. This makes it easy to chase your career or get to the gym. The work and health burners are on as high as they can go. A few years go by, and you start a family. Now your family burner will be on higher while your health burner dims to a simmer. Another 5 to 10 years pass and you could find yourself chasing that business idea you put off or reconnecting with friends. You don’t have to put off your dreams forever, but you’ll rarely be able to keep all four burners running. Maybe it’s best to turn one burner down for this season. You have a lifetime to accomplish everything you want to. There is also an interesting multiplier effect that happens when you take the time to fully dedicate yourself to one burner. In several instances, you can reach your goals by throwing everything you have it at for a few years instead of half-assing it for 50. Maybe rotating through seasons of imbalance is what you need to do. Right now, what season are you in? 3 — Embrace Your Constraints The Four Burners Theory has a more frustrating aspect associated with it, and this is that it puts a spotlight on any untapped potential you have. It’s so easy to fall into the habit of thinking, “I could get in shape or make more money if I ​only had​ more time.” You can manage this problem if you shift your focus to maximizing the time you have instead of focusing on the time you wish you had. You want to ask yourself, “How can you be as effective as possible, assuming x constraints?” For example, how can you make the most money possible working from 9 in the morning until five in the afternoon? How can you finish your book as quickly as possible if you can only write for 15 minutes every day? How can you get in the best shape you possibly can if you can only exercise for four hours a week? This questioning diverts your focus from the negative to the positive. Instead of worrying about never having enough time, you focus on getting the most out of the time you do have. As usual, there are disadvantages associated with this. By embracing your constraints, you’re not operating to your full potential. Where you spend your time matters, and there are plenty of ways you could work smarter, not harder. If you chose to invest more time in your relationships or career, your results would most likely improve in these areas. Which Burners Have You Switched Off? This theory sheds light on an unpleasant truth that no one wants to deal with, but everyone has to at one point. No one wants to admit they can’t have it all, but everyone has limits to their energy and time. Every choice you make has a cost associated with it. Which burners have you cut off?