Phrase of the Week – “Work-Life Balance”
A concept including proper prioritizing between “work” (career and ambition) and “lifestyle” (health, pleasure, leisure, family and spiritual development/meditation). This is related to the idea of lifestyle choice.
Quote of the week – “Work hard. Play hard”
Question of the week – How do you ensure that you are giving home more than you are giving career, school, business venture, etc?
This week in words
It is pretty cool how Wikipedia can define a phrase that becomes extremely difficult in today’s world.
Why is balance getting so hard? Let’s see; Could it be that parents are going back to school, in an effort to prevent the need to work double shifts to keep the lights on? That could be it? Maybe it is that our boss sees so much “drive & potential” in us that he/she feels the need to give us duties as their “go to employee” Not to mention juggling kids homework, a clean home and finding time to catch up with your mate. Oh, and find a way to not scream when someone asks “Hey, did you finish the report that is due for today’s meeting?”
Most of us have a hard time telling the ones we love, our boss, or even our neighbors the word “No”, but somewhere we find the energy to keep going. There is no doubt about it, in the technology era we can create and be way more productive or spend way more time looking at random funny videos, but one thing that is consistent no matter the era is TIME IS LIMITED!
It is so easy to get wrapped up into the most meaningless things, thanks to social media. We can watch our friends as they go on vacations. We can see how much fun our classmates had the night before thanks to Snapchat, and before you know it you have been sitting in the bathroom for 30 minutes and scrolled past the same picture 4 times. Addicting? Maybe. Boredom? still debatable. Either way, it’s time consuming to say the least. So how do the successful people manage to run million dollar companies and still have a head full of hair and no bags under their eyes?
Here are some things that a few of my closest mentors, friends, and colleagues have shared with me that help them to keep a level head when the going gets toughest.
1 – Rest
Pretty self-explanatory, but 8 hours of sleep is recommended over and over, yet we hear from everyone “All I need is a good 4 hours and I am good to go”. Wrong, Get to bed. Set a schedule.
2 – Reading
Some of the biggest moguls in the world carve out between 1 – 3 hours per day to read. Sure none of us think we have a spare couple hours, but how often do we spend on our favorite websites these days? Try substituting this for a new book. This is not only a great way to stay in the know on current events, but also it is a great way to learn new things if you have found yourself wanting to pick up a new skill.
3 – Music
Everyone loves to turn the music all the way up on the way home from a long day or relax to more peaceful tones when winding down. Music has also been proven to increase productivity. So next time you have a project due or a report to work through, maybe your favorite playlist could be the answer to getting it done in a timely manner.
4 – Exercise
If exercise does not come with enough benefits, a great deal of CEOs from around the U.S all share this as something that is one of their biggest pieces to the work-life balance saga. Exercise is a great place to do some thinking and planning.
5 – Family Time
Easily my favorite. No matter if I am juggling meetings after work for my company, or playing video games against friends, there is nothing more important to round out my days or week than catching up with family. Be it sitting down for dinner with my significant other, or calling my relatives during the most brutal traffic jam to talk sports, family time is a great way to laugh and charge the battery to survive those times where you are just ready to yell.
I hope you all have a great week. Never think that you are too busy to get something done. Anything of value is going to take consistent time and energy.
Let me know what you think!
Cheers!
Cort