The Balancing Act
We’re 14 days into 2019! How are we doing on our goals, intentions and resolutions? Started yet? Haven’t started? No pressure! Motivation comes in ebbs and flows. We lead busy lives and sometimes even the best of intentions doesn’t necessarily get our butts in gear right away.
It’s difficult to find balance when we’re pulled in so many directions and with so much thrown at us from all directions: phone calls, texts, emails, household, kids. I’m all too familiar with finding balance. Having single-handedly raised 3 children while working 2 full time jobs, taking evening classes toward my undergrad degree, being a soccer mom and chauffeur for extra curriculum activities. I slept very little and didn’t have much of a social life. Eventually I burned out, physically, mentally, spiritually.
I had the juggling act down to a science, but I wasn’t balanced.
Balance is defined as an even distribution of weight. An “act” is to take action; do something.
Action
Changes
Things
Action is effort. Effort creates balance.
If we weighed our professional and personal lives on a scale, we’d have more weight on one side. Most of our time is spent toward our professional life, family/friends, and for some of us, furthering our education, or a side hustle you’re trying to make your main hustle.
The objective is to evenly distribute effort so that you start making yourself a priority. That you maximize the time you have within a 24 hour period, to devote to you, your personal goals, hobbies, and self care.
We’ve all used the busy excuse. In a world where everything is at our fingertips we’re sooooooooo busy that we can’t find the time to return an email, a phone call, a text; can’t find the time to exercise, to work on our personal goals, or revisit pastimes and hobbies, to be still. There are not enough hours in the day to get everything done excuse. Malarkey. I worked a day shift, an overnight shift, slept for 2 hours in between gigs, attended classes two nights a week, and made the time to take my kids to their extra curriculum activities and be in attendance, make it to school events and parent teacher conferences, and still ensured we had a home cooked dinner every night (except for Fridays, that was junk night lol). When people tell me they can’t find the time to do something it’s an excuse or they just don’t want to be bothered with the task at hand.
We’re busy, but are we being productive? We think we’re balanced, but we’re really just jugglers. We’ve become the master of the juggling act. Throwing a million balls in the air. Eventually our arms are going to tire; we may drop one ball, become off balanced and then the rest of the balls are going to tumble down. We’re doing twice as much as we could, but half as much as we should; doing more but getting less done.
We’ve mastered the juggling act because with so much information at our fingertips, we’ve formed the habit of multi-tasking instead of prioritizing—focusing on one thing at a time. When we prioritize, we create balance. Prioritizing changes the trajectory. You’ll see where your time is being spent, and you’ll find pockets of time you can reclaim.
Prioritizing Your Life.
I made a career as an assistant. An assistant is the manager of people and time. He/she has to ensure the supported person’s schedule runs efficiently in order for them to maximize their time. An assistant has to be organized, be efficient, and be a master at prioritizing.
The Wheel of Life is a time management tool some life coaches use to help us identify areas that need more attention. Areas in our lives where we need to distribute effort equally. Notice I didn’t say time; however in equally distributing effort, inadvertently time becomes a factor—the importance of it. When you begin to maximize your time, you will think twice about wasting it frivolously.
Review, reflect, and rearrange. What do you need to eliminate in order to add value to your life? In adding value, you’re going to use your time wisely.
Next, eliminate, evaluate, execute. Get rid of the time wasters, evaluate your patterns and habits. What are you doing with your time after you’ve taken care of the household, got the kids settled, etc.? Are you working on your goals, hobbies, side hustle? Remember those time wasters?
Lastly, and most importantly keep a running task list! A To Do list keeps you focused, it keeps you motivated. If you physically see what you have to do, you’ll make it happen. Now, don’t have this long To Do list and think you’re going to accomplish everything in a day. Spread the tasks out over a 7 day period. Tackle your top 3 in a day if you can. When you devote even one hour a day to a personal task you’ll reclaim seven hours of time per week. 7x4=28 hours of time you will reclaim for yourself in a month!
Balance doesn’t create itself; you have to create it.
Reclaim your time! Be great…the world needs more of that!
-Gillian
