Making the Most of Your Life

Living in the Here and Now

All work and no play? IESE Prof. Steven Poelmans shares insights from his new book on Quality Time, revealing that it doesn’t have to be that way. Then we look at IESE alumni and one professor whose hobbies add a different dynamic to their professional lives.

It’s a common complaint among busy professionals that their working hours are getting longer, while the amount of time left over for the pursuit of personal interests is getting shorter. The tyranny of work is increasingly crowding out any life outside of the office. Yet according to IESE Prof. Steven Poelmans, “It’s not a time issue, it’s a quality issue.”

He should know: Poelmans, a Belgian professor in the Department of Managing People in Organizations, has just published a book called Quality Time, recently hailed as one of the top three must-reads on management skills and processes. The book is the culmination of extensive research carried out by the International Center on Work and Family, a research center at IESE Business School in Barcelona, where Poelmans works as academic director.

“We did some studies looking at how people conceptualize the interface between work and their private lives,” says Poelmans. “It’s the way they choose to pattern their professional/private lives that most influences their well-being.”

Poelmans came up with four types of people. “Separators” set strict boundaries between their work and personal life, but in doing so, often cut themselves off from positive spillover effects: colleagues, for example, might benefit from hidden talents being cultivated outside the office. “Available” types make no demarcation between the personal and the professional, but work usually wins the tug-of-war on your time. Those who pursue a hobby because they find their work so mind-numbingly dull are “Compensation” types hoping to make up for some creative stimulation that’s missing from their lives; but ultimately this approach doesn’t make their 9-to-5 lives any more rewarding.

The best type, says Poelmans, are those who can live in the “Here and Now.” So, whatever you’re doing at any given time – whether at work or doing the thing you love best out of office hours – it absorbs you 100 percent. “This seems to be a strategy that works well,” says Poelmans. “Obviously, there are limits, because of course you still need a degree of quantity time in order to have quality time. But I do believe you have to reach this point where you are able to savor the moment you are in. There’s no conflict between work and your ‘other life’ – you are simply able to make the transition from one to the other, and both absorb and satisfy you fully at the time.”

High-flying professionals who have a hobby may adopt any of these approaches. But according to Poelmans, “We need to learn from the ‘Here and Now’ types, because these are the types that seem to be the most healthy and satisfied.”

The IESE-linked leaders featured over the following pages are finding ways to integrate all the interesting aspects of their lives, and to enjoy them in the here and now. As their stories reveal, this is perhaps the best step towards achieving that elusive goal of “quality time.