Balancing Your Work Time Management Wise

By Cool Art

Personal balance is envisioned by many as all kinds of things on the two pans of a scale, in perfect balance. This is a ridiculously naive goal. Plenty of frustration awaits anyone, who expects to lead life with everything, work, family, social life, allocated a certain amount of time everyday, so that’s every piece and bit is “in balance.” Just think of it. A delayed bus can ruin your business meeting, or mingy boss can keep you up at work well into after business hours breaking to pieces your day-long-looking-forward-to a cosy family dinner.

‘Real life’ balance needs being adjusted continually, not unlike a rope-walker who needs to throw weight here and there to make it. By just paying close attention to four key realms of your life, i.e. emotions and spiritual development, interactions with other people, intellectual needs, and your physical nature needs, both at work and out of it, you can become an effective tight-rope artist.

Below are the quintessence of ten concepts by some highly successful people dealing with balancing work and family, and all other key aspects of your life:

1. Give yourself treatment you deserve. Get rid of that notion that there is anybody more important than yourself once and for all. Start using your organizer of Google Calendar not only for clients and partners, or events involving other people. Indulge in some first rate time. Get a habit that gives you pleasure. A friend of mine has taken to run daily. He’s now the happiest person alive, full of energy and stamina. Don’t forget to keep tabs on your time spending with a good time tracking software.

“It’s all about quality of life and finding a happy balance between work and friends and family.”
– Philip Green

2. Take care of your health. To look trustworthy and exhuming success you need to lead a healthy life as much as it still gives you pleasure. With any current liveliness level you possess, you can get better using these little pieces of advice:

Consume food, but in moderation. Don’t skip breakfast or any other meal for that matter. Your physics and mental power depend upon how much calories and nutrients you consume. Broken eating can cause in fits of irritation, depressions, lack of mental power, and stomach failures.

Exercise is vital. Most successful people put it high on their list of keys to success. Start small – walk a mile, or two. The best exercise is jogging or running. The benefits are numerous and not only physical. Ambitious targets call for strong spirits, and that in turn suggests a strong body. Quite obviously, the healthier you are and the more stamina you possess, the better and longer you can work.

Let yourself rest a lot. As a general rule, the successful lot tend to rest often and get much night sleep. A sleepless night can hardly make you look healthier.

3. Leave some things to go their own way. Don’t work yourself to death by trying to do everything. The secret it to do only that which is absolutely necessary. Use a to-do list with caution. Take important thing first, or as someone said: ‘Eat that frog!’, leaving the rest to be icing on the cake, a reward for being an efficient doer of the right things. Do not forget to time yourself in doing those important things. How else you are going to know you have any time left?

Of course, if you can manage better in balcancing your work and family, good for you! The more things you do well in a day the better worker you are, clearly, and the higher your chances to become a seasoned pro! Just don’t overdo it. Setting 100 percent efficiency as a goal is like trying to build a perpetuum mobile. The best you can do is to accept whatever good outcomes you manage to get.

4. Don’t use clear-cut limits… if you can. Apart from the clear strategy of having isles of social life, home life, etc. which you use and protect, you can try something quite the opposite. Work out of inspiration, mixing work with pleasure just as it suits you. After all, who said we have to have ‘regular, 9-5’ jobs only?

Of course, there are jobs for which this stratagem won’t work, simply because it won’t. However, there are ways to smudge the limits, you may not be aware of. One way is to involve your family in what you do more. More specifically, by encouraging employees to bring their wives/husbands to conferences and annual meetings, companies do a very right thing. People taking part in what you do can identify better with your successes and accept fiascoes.

“I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can’t truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles.”
– Zig Ziglar

5. Take breaks. Doctors’ general view is that taking a break from work can be of marked benefit to your mental and physical health. It’s like letting arable land to fallow in agriculture, that is, to rest for a year to give even more grain. A good break is timed break. Use a good time tracker to record how much time you spend resting from work to come to an optimal ratio eventually.

6. Take the road off the beaten path, at least occasionally. From time to time, forsake the daily routine for something new. Something out of the ordinary just to make a difference. Plot a new way to get to work, like leaving the car at home just for once. You may like it. Even better, try bicycling instead of walking. By getting yourself out of routine, you just may get an inspiration you have been lacking. And it takes only one. An inspired person can do far, far more than that without the bliss. Inspiration is what makes people stars!

7. Track your time. Time is an interesting phenomenon. It is quite intangible and still billable. Perhaps the only reason we can bill for time is that we can MEASURE it. Once it’s measured it can be compared with something of value, like work. So, time tracking is important.

8. Think in project terms. Learn project management from the very basics. Consider a visit to the supermarket a project, and activities it involves, its tasks. Task 1: Getting the car ready, cost of fuel, etc. Task 2: Shopping list, etc. This approach will help you use a great deal of time management software products available in the market. Sometimes people do not use them because they figure, well, since we don’t have projects, why bother.

9. Do what you love to do. Sure enough, you won’t get far on love alone. It is a must that are good at what you do. The point is, loving to do something will get you master it with far greater cheer than learning what we hate. Not to fear. People change their jobs at least a couple of times in their lifetime. You have always a chance of getting the job that you’ll love.

10. Think globally. Effective time management is good enough only if you have purpose, and kind of global one. In other words, time management ultimately boils down to LIFE management. If we want our life in order, in balance, it is not only business hours you get paid for, it’s everything that fill up your life.

To sum up balancing work and family principles, let’s turn to Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said:

‘To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because I have lived. This is to have succeeded.’