Is it work/life balance or life/work balance?

I've been responding to several messages about courses and books and on line seminars and the like recently and notice that many have work/life balance as their theme.

Does that seem the right way round to you ? Are we being invited to balance our working lives first and then consider everything else as an after thought ? As many of these inviations are offered by employers seeking to enhance the productivity of their workforce I think that is how they see it. Put work first and everything else will fall into place.

Well no, my experience as a coach says no that's the wrong way around.

I think we need to have a very clear picture of our life and how we'd like it to be first. How do we want to spend our time, how do we plan to be healthy in mind, body and spirit ? Once we've got that picture clear we can begin to make sure our work contributes to that picture as much as possible.

I doubt that anyone has ways of earning their living which always, always contribute positively to their lives but the more we can aim for that, the better we'll feel about ourselves and the better we feel the more productive we'll be.

So I think we're all aiming for life/work balance myself.