I’m often asked about work/life balance and how to get more of it in our busy lives. And it’s no wonder that this is a hot topic. Often when we’re feeling out of balance it can cause a lot of undue stress and overwhelm. Plus life lacks that sparkle that makes all the gruelling annoying stuff worthwhile.
In a discussion with a client the other day, they were saying that they’d recently had the realisation that their life is all about work. She used to have a lot of other interests but that she’s let them fall by the wayside. It’s something to keep in mind that focusing too much on one area of our lives can make us feel out of balance because we’re not feeling fulfillment across all areas of life. As my client did here, observing ourselves and looking at where we are spending the majority of our time is a healthy thing to do. Chances are that the areas you’re spending a lot of time on are those areas that you have set goals and have a lot of clarity around.
If you’re feeling out of balance, observing yourself and becoming interested in where your time is going and where you’re feeling drawn to focus more on, is quite valuable in deciding where to spend your time. A useful question to ask yourself here is at the end of the day, what do you wish that you’d got to but didn’t. And what do you seem to never get around to in general. Being alert to those habits can expose where the imbalances are happening for you.
One way you can observe yourself is to keep an eye on your calendar. Your calendar is a really great resource to be able to look back on and see where your time is going and what you’re dedicated to. I’m a huge fan of time blocking so having that colour blocking system in place in the calendar alerts us to where and when imbalances are occurring too. Because if we’ve got different areas of life captured in our calendar, then we can start seeing that we’re needing more socialising for example, or more health and well being. So your calendar can become a tool to help create more balance again.
An immediate exercise that you can do to check in on your balance in life is my Holistic Organising Life Audit tool. This essentially gives you a bird’s eye view of your life. And it’s great to re-take this every month, or every three or six months, to see how things have changed for you.
The next step to ensure balance and to protect your new perspective of your life, is to set some Key Performance Indicators for each area. KPIs in this sense is asking yourself what do you want for each area? What is your baseline to be the best version of yourself and to be happy in each area? Essentially, if every area was at a 10 (highly satisfied), what would that look and feel like?
For the client that I mentioned earlier, she worked out that to fulfil her need for fun/recreation that she needed to dedicate some time each week to paint. So we got that into her calendar. We talked about that being a commitment for, and to herself. If you remember when you were a kid, or maybe you have kids and do this for them now, you had to go on a playdate that your parents had scheduled for you. This is what we need to do for our wellbeing, we need to parent ourselves and stick to our commitments because we know that through doing so it will pay us dividends.
If you need more guidance as to how to bring more balance into your life or how to commit to a structure that allows for all of your life to shine, get in touch. Take advantage of a free 30 minute chat with me and let’s get more of what you need into your week!
