As a successful media entrepreneur and author, Tim Duggan seemed to have life sorted.
In 2005, he established queer online magazine SameSame.com.au and then co-founded the influential youth-oriented Junkee Media in 2014. Four years ago, he married the love of his life Ben and in recent years has published the critically acclaimed books, Cult Status and Killer Thinking, which examined business practices, thinking and innovation.
However, in 2022, the death of his beloved father Phil floored him. Not only had he lost his parent, his best mate and mentor, he realised he wasn’t living; he was just ‘doing’.
Tim started researching, reflecting and experimenting and realised he needed to start to Work Backwards and has written a book with the same title.
“While we spend the best hours of days and the best years of life at work, work doesn’t love us back,” he says.
“Too many of us go through life acting, without thinking, and one reason I really wanted to write this book is to ask everyone to take a moment and evaluate their lives. It’s time to reframe the discussion from work/life balance to life/work balance.”
To start on this journey, Tim wants us to MAP out our life through understanding what our Meaning, Anchors and Priorities are.
He said the queer community had inherent strengths to achieve the life/work balance and we must not be afraid to take action.
“We have had a lot of our values and anchors forged in the fire just through the process of having to come out and learn to live in a world where we are a minority and I think that can be a real superpower to relatation to these concepts about working backwards.”
Tim outlined how he pushed the boundaries and through experimenting and being true to his MAP, he achieved the life/work balance.
“I currently live in Spain and work Monday to Wednesday, predominantly during the Australian time-zone because my current clients work in Australia. While my husband and I adore living here now, this may change if I choose to come home or move to another country.
“I see the concept of experimenting as something we have to continually do to refine and better learn what is true to our values. It is something that can be done by anyone at any time in their lives.”
Work Backwards is out now on Pantera Press.
