Part 2: Action Alternatives to Work-Life Balance and Frustrations

Part 2: Action Alternatives to Work-Life Balance and Frustrations

Welcome to Part 2 of a two part series on Action Alternatives to Work-Life Balance.

The sad news: work-life balance is likely illusive.  The good news: seeds for improvement are ready for sprouting as you interact with others and the environment.  As suggested here the gift of effective choice and appropriate proportion are seeds that include fresh thinking and a variety of choices.

Move Beyond Pining for Balance to Pleasure and Productivity: Give yourself these two gifts in whatever forms work well for you.

The gift of effective choice: Before doing anything significant, just answer this: How will this action contribute to what I want for my life and/or to people I cherish?  The information and emotions that emerge will contribute to good decisions.

For anything routine, ask yourself if it can be postponed, let go, or delegated.  If not, corral such daily demands so they can complement one another or find ways to make them as pleasant as possible to do.

The gift of appropriate proportion: Recognizing that unanticipated demands will always intrude, decide in advance approximately how much time and attention you can, want to, and will give to particular activities each week. Though not mutually exclusive, categories may include:

  • family and close friends
  • community
  • health
  • learning
  • psyche and spirit
  • finances
  • cultural activities
  • social activities
  • work
  • play/fun

Maybe schedule activities that attend to two or three of these categories each week.  Over a month or so, briefly review how continuing choices relate to categories you currently value.  Use the insights to choose situations that honor proportions you prefer.

Here are three final suggestions for action to enrich your quality of life that don’t require more time you probably don’t have anyway.

  • Describe briefly how you will combine two or more categories from the list above into one activity you’d enjoy.
  • With whom will you collaborate to shift one of two habits to your and the other person’s benefit?
  • What main, specific resources, tangible or intangible, will you need to proceed?  How would you get them?

As you attend to what satisfies you, you’ll likely find out what is enough. And you’ll limit automatic actions that distract you from what you truly want.

Next Steps: Don’t hesitate to let me know which actions you selected and how your work-life balance has improved.

 

 

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