Image: Vitaly Gariev via Pexels
Time Off and Exercise
In December of 1982, when my brand new business was nearly 100% a term paper typing service, I worked 31 days without a break, and was on the verge of collapse. My wife peeled me out of my typing chair and into the car, and we had a couple of days of rest in Vermont. That brought home to me the importance of taking time off.
Since then, I don’t do client work on weekends. I take a lot of vacations. I also try to get 2 hours of exercise every day—and usually exceed that. While not all of that is high-intensity cardio, usually between 30-60 minutes is. Most days, my wife and I do either a cardio or yoga class and either walk in the woods or bike on the bike paths and country roads in our area, plus do an indoor bike ride in the morning, and some freeform rock dancing.
Daily Gratitude Practice
Another way I bring balance into my life is the daily gratitude journal I’ve been posting on Facebook since March 2018. I’ve chronicled every single day since then. It might be less than 200 words, or more than 2000, or anywhere in between. It’s a significant time commitment, sometimes as much as two hours—but it’s worth it to me because it forces me to go through life looking for things to be grateful for, so I have something to post that night and the Gratitude Journal fans have something to look forward to. I’ve done this even on the really hard days, like the day my stepfather was killed by a distracted driver. That day’s journal entry focused on the impact this remarkable man had on me over 50 years. The post, like most of my Facebook feed, is open to all, even if you don’t have a Facebook account.
The gratitude project has also made me a better photographer, because I take photos to remind myself of what I’m grateful for, so I remember it at the end of the day when I’m writing it down and can provide some visual interest. I noticed that people liked the photographs, paid attention to which ones they like, and I got better at it, because I take more shots like that, and fewer of the blurry ones I used to take, and more arty ones that highlight both the naturescape and the humanscape (architecture, industrial works, etc.).
Food
Eating well is another big component of a balanced life. Yes, there are vegetarian foodies, and I’m proud to be one of them. I haven’t voluntarily eaten meat since 1973. I love to cook and I find it therapeutic when I’m having a tough day and an outlet for my creativity at any time. And we’re members of a CSA farm, have our own garden, and visit area farmers markets, so my diet is heavily tilted toward local, organic, super-fresh foods. Most weeks, my wife and I more-or-less alternate who cooks dinner (with some adjustments for our schedules), so neither of us burn out on it.
Scheduling
A good time-management tool is a big help, too. After resisting electronic calendars for probably a decade, I switched to Google Calendar several years ago. While I’m not generally a fan of Google products—I use Ecosia.org as my primary search engine mostly because of privacy concerns with Google—but the calendar’s great. I love being able to automatically put buffers in. I have the buffer set for half an hour, so if I have an appointment that ends at 2 o’clock, nobody can book me till 2.30. That gives me time to pee, to get a drink of water to just kind of relax and process whatever just went on.
I also love being able to see my wife’s calendar in the same window as my own (only on the computer, not on the phone), which helps a lot with scheduling and reducing car trips into town. And for in-person events, I block out not just the event time but the travel time and put the actual start time in the event title. We also note on the calendar if one of us is using our shared Zoom account, so we don’t double-book. And it syncs with Calendly so when someone books an appointment, it goes right into my calendar automatically. (In fact, I warn everyone that a meeting isn’t confirmed unless they hear back from me, not just the Calendly bot, with a Zoom link.) Also, I miss a lot fewer meetings because Google Calendar reminds me a half an hour ahead so I can quickly plan for a meeting I may have forgotten about.
Communications and Delegation
Managing email and social media are challenging. I limit my time in both. I’m usually on Facebook and LinkedIn combined for 1-2 hours a day. Mostly, I’m responding to comments and messages, but I do try to engage with a few posts every day.
Alas, with 300 messages arriving on a typical day, I’ve long since given up on keeping up with email, and I just warn people, if you email me and you don’t respond, I probably didn’t see your email, you might want to send me a text to go look at the email. I would love to delegate in my inbox. I don’t feel like I can, because my interests are too diverse and I’m just going to get asked, “well, do you need this? Do you need that?” So I just open my own mail, and most of it I don’t open. That’s not ideal. I will be first to admit that my productivity would be a lot better if I had a better system for dealing with email.
But delegating is crucial. If I’m not an expert in something I see who I can hire to do it for me. While I keep income and expense spreadsheets, I turn them over to a tax preparer. I don’t change the oil on my car but bring it to a garage. And I have a Virtual Assistant who formats my monthly newsletter from content I supply. She also sends out birthday messages from me to my Facebook community. I write the message each year and I respond when someone replies, but she finds the people celebrating their birthday and sends the prewritten message from my account.
Keeping Learning Absorbable
For summits and conferences, take what you need. If you’re going to a 3-day virtual summit and it’s 7 hours a day, pick two or three sessions you really want to attend and add in others if you’re in the mood when that time arrives. If I’m speaking, I try to be there for the session before and the session after, because it’s kind of rude to parachute in and out. But if I’m not speaking, I look at who is offering content that’s useful to me. Who do I think is going to be a good offerer and presenter? What times are convenient,and do I have access to the recording later?
What are YOUR favorite ways to achieve balance?
