photo credit: Jodiepedia

It can be awfully tempting to use your weekend to catch up on what didn’t get done this week, or what perenially never gets done. I know: I do it all the time.

But downtime gives us perspective, lets us recover physically and mentally, and allows us to perform better. So here’s a thought: as you go about your Friday, look for simple ways to tie up loose ends a bit tighter than usual so that you can use your weekend to recharge. Maybe it’s as simple as tidying your desk before you leave. I promise you, you’ll come back fresher on Monday for it.

Have a great Friday, and a very relaxing weekend.

photo credit: Iain Farrell

There it was. Rather, there they were. Usually every day.

I’m talking about meeting requests. They don’t flood my inbox, but they’re there. And they don’t go away unless I do something about them.

The trouble with meeting requests is that you can rarely gauge how much trouble they’re worth. You could say no to just the right contact who could have landed you on Oprah (if you know how to do this, I’d like to meet with you, actually). Or, you could say yes to meeting with someone who just wanted to sell you pet insurance. How can one navigate the muddy meeting waters?

Monica O’Brien, who writes at Twentyset, says this:

I get messages almost daily from people who read my blog and want to meet with me by phone or in-person. As a rule, though, I won’t meet with anyone unless they have interacted with me several times, or they give me a good reason (not just “let’s chat”). I realize this may make me seem snobby or elite, which isn’t my intention.

My intention is to avoid time sucks. I would love to be everyone’s friend, but it isn’t a reality for me at this time. I have work, school, a house, and a family that all need my attention too.

Go read the rest of her article. It’s really about finding the right mentor – and not just about scheduling meetings. But, she does bring to light pertinent realities when it comes to making sure you take the right meetings and ditch the bad ones.

Whether you’re meeting someone new or deciding if it’s worth running over to the other department to meet with someone, how do you decide which meetings to take? We’d love to hear how you avoid time sucks and really capitalize on face-to-face encounters.

That means that you have a full day on Monday to get things done. Sure – carve out time to grill out, go to the lake, sing a song – but just imagine what you could do in four hours that morning with no one sending you emails. And none that you have to send.

Most people will probably leave the office tomorrow after lunch, too. If you stay until five, you’ll have five more hours to do (nearly) uninterrupted work. Combine that with Monday morning and you get an extra day. One entire day that your competition, your co-workers and your colleagues may ignore. What can you do to get ahead, be remarkable and mark off your list?

This is definitely in my plans. I have every intention of getting some relaxation in, but the extra few hours of organizing what has gotten a bit chaotic, of catching up on projects at a high level, of checking off just one or two extra tasks — all of that will ultimately reduce stress and anxiety and make my work life calmer, so it be as good for me as any R&R could ever be.

What about you? Are you regarding this long weekend as strictly an opportunity to relax, or will you be sneaking some work in? Lay it down for us in the comments.

photo credit: MeaganJean

The weekend is here at last! Time to take it easy, put your feet up, maybe do some yard work, and hang out with friends. Or is it?

For many busy professionals (perhaps you!), the weekends are often overtaken with catch-up tasks from the previous week, and in perhaps fewer cases, planning for the week ahead.

We all know we need a break, but the specter of possible layoffs, the increased workload from laid-off coworkers, and the crazy-fast-paced workplaces many of us are in means more and more to do, and a great deal of anxiety about how to get it done.

May we make a suggestion? It isn’t rocket science or anything, but sometimes we need the truth pointed out to us before we can recognize it. You will probably encounter distractions, you won’t get it all done, and you will probably close out the weekend feeling disappointed that you didn’t get to relax more. Instead, why not take the Weekend Idealist approach to Getting Relaxation Done:

1. Decide the two work-related things (no more than that!) that you could do in under an hour this weekend that would make you feel more caught up and allow you to feel less anxious.
2. Pick the best time to do them: if your focus is better in the mornings, get them over with right away.
3. Get them done! Don’t let them turn into an ordeal. Just power through them and knock them out.
   
4. Permit yourself the blissful freedom to do whatever you want with the rest of your weekend.

See? It’s so easy, you’ll wonder why you haven’t been doing it this way all along.

We hope you’ll be able to find balance this weekend. We’re all for productivity and achievement, but everyone needs to unwind now and then.

Got a process for balancing your productive time with your relaxing time on the weekends? Share it in the comments.

And have a great weekend!

photo credit: the_vampire_hanna

When we feel out of balance, it’s usually because we can’t keep things straight – our priorities, our calendar, our free time. So, what are we to do if we’re really trying our best to keep work and life balanced?

There’s no shortage of systems and methods out there for planning, prioritizing and predicting. Here’s a quick list (although admittedly not comprehensive) of some methods that may help:

• Getting Things Done – The gold standard in workflow and information management. Many folks swear by David Allen’s system.
• Old-fashioned pad and pen – Whether it’s a Moleskine or a steno pad, many people still like to write down what needs doing and scratch it off when it’s done.
• Day Grid Balancer – A simple checklist that allows for prioritization, this free download sample can help you set priorities.
• Assorted to do lists – Whether you use your inbox to manage tasks or an iPhone app that helps you remember what needs doing, handy add ons and services like Remember the Milk can keep things straight for you.

What do you use to keep things straight? In a world where so much needs doing and it can be so easy to get bogged down by both the mundane and the ultimate, share with us how you keep up with it all.

photo credit: dpadua

A few days ago, I was chatting with a friend over dinner about productivity methodologies. We talked about Getting Things Done, Franklin Covey, and a handful of other approaches and schools of thought. One that I mentioned, and which started an interesting side discussion, was a system called Life Balance.

For a while, I used the Life Balance software zealously, because it asks you to assess your “big rocks” type of life goals and focus areas, and then apply continuous balancing, as aided by the software, between the actions that help you progress in those areas. As someone who juggles quite a few avocations (blogging, obviously, and songwriting, just to name a few) in addition to my professional career and personal life, this made a lot of sense to me.

Unfortunately, as I told my friend, I found myself gaming the system. When the software dutifully reminded me that it had been three days since I last checked off “Spend time writing a song,” I knew I had other things I needed to get done first, and would raise the priority of other tasks to compete with songwriting, or whatever else was at the top of the list. My reaction to what the software showed me about my own prioritization and follow-through was that I was hopelessly out of balance and a victim of my own overcommitment.

And possibly that was true. But what my friend and I agreed was that priorities are often in flux, and being “out of balance” for a relatively short period of time to accomplish major goals can still be in balance, in the greater scheme of life goals. So when you’re, say, starting up a business and you regularly sacrifice evening and weekend leisure to ensure your new venture’s success, you could argue that what you’re really doing is prioritizing the leisure in your future ahead of the leisure in your present. And all in all, perhaps there’s still a kind of life balance in that.

(For the record, some time ago, I switched to using Remember the Milk for all my task organization, which with its highly customizable tagging and smart lists, allows me to be a little more fickle about the particular organization methodology I employ at any given time. I’m also a huge fan of Evernote for all my note taking and mental organization needs. Yes, I’m kind of a productivity tools geek.)

What time management approach do you use? How have you dealt with imbalances in your life? Tell us in the comments.

photo credit: DerrickT

Many people think that work/life balance is all about what appears on either side of the vs. in any given scenario. For example:

• Then vs. Now
• Work vs. Life
• Passion vs. Profession

Or better yet:

• Doing what I have to do vs. Doing what I want to do
• Making money vs. Having fun
• Playing it safe vs. Living your dreams

Of course, all of the above matchups are limiting, and even unfair. But that’s the point. Neither work nor life always have to come down to a 1 vs. 2 choice. It doesn’t have to be Either vs. Or. Believe it or not, it can be This AND That. Work AND Life. Passion AND Profession.

And maybe that’s the center around which work/life balance rotates. It’s finding that sweet spot where what we want to do and what we have to do collide. It’s finding the gooey center of happiness in the middle of the Tootie Roll Pop we call life.

So, don’t merely try to justify your 8-hour workday. Find an 8-hour workday that makes you happy, proud, and fulfilled. Don’t buy into the modern mantra that it can only be one or the other. Don’t defer life – live a whole one.

To get a better glimpse into what I mean by that, spend time this weekend with The Monk and the Riddle. This quick read is a quasi-fictional account of a Web-based entrepreneur who thinks he needs to strike it rich with a business plan he’s not very crazy about in order to live the life he’s always wanted. After several conversations with a Silicon Valley veteran, he finally realizes that work is about more than a paycheck, and that value is measured in more places than on a balance sheet.

An excerpt:

Work hard, work passionately, but apply your most precious asset – time – to what is most meaningful to you. What are you willing to do for the rest of your life? does not mean, literally, what will you do for the rest of your life? That question would be absurd, given the inevitability of change. No, what the question really asks is, if your life were to end suddenly and unexpectedly tomorrow, would you be able to say you’ve been doing what you truly care about today? What would you be willing to do for the rest of your life? What would it take to do it right now?

Whether you read a book this weekend, or whether you finally break free from the versus mentality, understand that balancing between work and life might be as simple as re-understanding the meaning of the word life.

photo credit: Shyald

So often, it’s one little word that defines what we are doing.

For about a year now I’ve been thinking about adding a small structure to my property– such as the ones found here — so I can go from working at home to working from home. The distinction is significant.

My existing house is not very big, and my family uses every square inch for pure living. I want to do two things: 1) Carve out my own work space and really define it as an environment for creativity and productivity; and 2) Preserve my home as the place where we gather and eat and sleep and play as a family. I’ve always cringed at the home offices where someone is still physically in the house, but unavailable to be engaged in the business of family life.

More and more of us need to be able to work from home. Employers are cutting costs by reducing office space and requiring employees to be off-site. In addition, many people no longer have a traditional employer, but work for themselves on a contract basis with multiple clients.

The idea of working from home has a legendary appeal. The key is to recognize that it may turn out to be just a legend unless you honor the important differences between work and home as spaces with unique requirements and functions. Be honest with yourself about what you need to get work done, and be purposeful about creating both that space and time.

Being successful in the new world of work is about more than a wireless connection and bunny slippers. It’s about being able to perform well in alternative settings, and it is a big advantage to acknowledge that those spaces still need to be conducive to work/life balance as well as getting the job done.

photo credit: Ed Yourdon

Yesterday, while jogging through downtown Nashville, I noticed something. I noticed lots of things, actually. I noticed the people who were busy and in a hurry making their way from the train to their office buildings. I saw buildings that were being renovated to make way for condos and new retail stores. I also saw how dead an entertainment district can be at the crack of dawn.

When I run on my urban route, there’s a lot I pick up. There’s a lot that I see that most people don’t when they invade downtown for the day to make a living. I notice more things about my city that seem to be missed by tourists and bar hoppers and restaurant goers.

Seeing the city on foot each morning gives me a deeper appreciation and concern for my hometown. While I can be vocal about its shortcomings, knowing this place a bit more intimately means that I can also see its great potential. And that’s what leads me to declare that this is a great place to call home.

Feeling at home somewhere may just mean that we can feel a bit more balanced. Being happy where we are and enjoying where we live can make us stomach work a bit more and love life in a whole new way.

Do you enjoy where you live? Are their particular quirks to your neck of the woods? What is it you appreciate about your city? Knowing what you love will help you feel at home, which will add to your overall happiness about work and life.

photo credit: Orin Optiglot

One of the defining characteristics of work/life balance revolves around the issue of choice. We all really want the choice to work when we want, where we want and how we want. Or we want the choice to vacation as we wish, go to events that are appealing, or meet up with friends we love.

And, if our life is balanced enough between what we do to make money and then what we do when we spend that money, we feel free. We feel like we’re in control of our lives and careers and that we’re able to do better work and maybe even be better people.

Of course, when we don’t feel like we’re maintaining a healthy work/life balance, we can feel helpless. Out of whack. Frantic. And then we may not be able to do our best work or even live our best life.

There’s a growing body of research that says too many choices are bad for us. Too many choices can be paralyzing, confusing and may actually mean that we make a worse choice. Does this then mean that in order to have a proper work/life balance we should actually not seek to have more choices about how we spend our time? Should I erase the first two paragraphs of this post?

No. Instead, we need to best navigate between the choices that matter and the choices that don’t.

Maybe I think I want a gig that allows me to work from wherever I want. Maybe I like to be able to choose to work from home, a cubicle, a coffeehouse or a moving train. Or maybe that decision doesn’t mean that much to me. After all, no matter what, I’ll still be working. Sure – our environment can have a direct effect on our productivity, but maybe it’s not that big of a deal.

Maybe instead I’d like to be able to choose the kind of work I get to do. Maybe I’d rather be able to choose the clients I get to work with, the kind of marketing campaigns I put together or the kinds of products I sell. Because those choices deal directly with the kind of work I’m doing, they may make the work part of my work/life balance a little better, which could allow me to spend my life time at places I enjoy (like my home, a cubicle, a coffeehouse or a moving train).

As you reflect on your own balance this weekend, think about which choices are most important. Then, begin to build your work around those choices. Take a deep breath when you feel like you don’t have any freedom in certain choices and if possible, dismiss them as unimportant. Or at least let them be sacrificed on the altar of choices that matter.