Within Your Grasp: Work-Life Balance - Breathing Space Blog

Work-Life Balance is within your grasp, and it all starts with the realization that the resources you assemble must meet or exceed your on-going challenges.  If not you will feel perpetually behind.

Several disciplines support work-life balance, though individually, none are synonymous with work-life balance:

            * Self Management
            * Time Management
            * Stress Management
            * Change Management
            * Technology Management
            * Leisure Management

1) Self Management
    Sufficiently managing one's self can be challenging, particularly in getting proper sleep, exercise, and nutrition. Self-management is the recognition that effectively using the spaces in our lives is vital, and that life, time, and available resources are finite. It means becoming captain of our own ship: no one is coming to steer for us.

2) Time Management
    Effective time management involves making optimal use of your day and the supporting resources that can be summoned, for you can only keep pace when your resources match your challenges. Time management is enhanced by creating appropriate goals and discerning what is both important and urgent versus what is important OR urgent. It entails understanding what you do best and when you do it best, and assembling the appropriate tools to accomplish specific tasks.

3) Stress Management
        By nature, societies tend to become more complex over time. In the face of increasing complexity, stress on the individual is inevitable. More people, more noise, and more distractions – independent of one's individual circumstances – require each of us to become more adept at maintaining tranquility and being able to work ourselves out of pressure-filled situations. Most forms of multi-tasking ultimately increase our stress, while focusing on one thing at a time helps decrease stress.

4) Change Management
        In our fast-paced world, change is virtually the only constant. Continually adopting new methods, adapting old methods, and re-adapting all methods are vital to a successful career and a happy home life. Effective change management involves offering periodic and concentrated efforts, so that the volume and rate of change at work and at home does not overwhelm or defeat you.

5) Technology Management
        Effectively managing technology requires ensuring that technology serves rather than abuses you. Technology has always been with us, since the first walking stick, spear, flint, and wheel. Today, the rate of technological change is accelerating, brought on by vendors who seek to expand their market share. Often, you have no choice but to keep up with the technological "Joneses;" still, you rule technology – don't let it rule you.

6) Leisure Management
        The most overlooked of the work-life balance supporting disciplines, leisure management acknowledges the importance of rest and relaxation – that one can't short-change leisure, and that "time off" is a vital component of the human experience. Curiously, too much of the same leisure activity, however enjoyable, can lead to monotony. Thus, effective leisure management requires varying one's activities.