Here is some time management help for internet marketers and network marketers whose lives seem out of control and who feel like they just can’t get anything done. Seek to re-balance the key elements of your life. We all need balance between the areas of your personal health, family, finance, intellectual development, our social lives, our professional or career endeavors, and our spiritual development. The fact is that if we ignore one or more of these areas we become stressed. Stress reduces your creativity and productivity. And loss of productivity and creativity carries over into each area of your life. That’s why it is important to re-balance and stay balanced. Let’s deal with these key areas of life one at a time.
Some people may argue that your health is everything. They’re not that far off. Without your health you will suffer from stress, you will feel bad, and your performance will also be diminished. In fact in extreme instances you may not be able to function in any of the areas of your life. The best health advice I’ve ever received is four-fold. First, eat like you want to live to be 120 years old. Drink at least 8 glasses of pure water a day (that’s about a half gallon using my big iced tea glass). Get an hour of good exercise every day. And finally, get at least 8 hours of restful sleep. There are no surprises here, or at least there shouldn’t be.
Family is a commitment which commands a lot of energy in all of our lives. First, if you have a family you have a responsibility to feed, clothe, shelter, and educate them. This means that you have financial and career obligations to meet. Of course there is the entire social and nurturing side of a family. You must teach them all to be healthy, balanced and productive human beings. So you can see that if you ignore your familial commitments you will quickly be spinning out of balance in multiple areas of your life.
The inability to meet financial obligations is a primary reason for the breakup of marriages, increased stress, and general misery in people’s lives. If you ignore your financial obligations it will quickly affect other areas of your life, causing even more stress, and even more misery.
We all have a need to feed our intellectual selves. It is our intellect that helps us deal with outside stimuli which affects our lives. If we are out of balance mentally, if we are not building knowledge and skill regularly, and if we are not holding ourselves to accountability for decision making, we will quickly become stressed and our personal productivity will suffer. A sharp mind is a critical tool for success.
Human beings are social creatures. We thrive in a social environment. After all, it is our social drive which ultimately allowed our ancestors to develop civilization. This is a core need for all of us. If you are too busy working or dealing with other aspects of your life and ignore your need for friends and community, you will suffer. This suffering will cause stress, and you guessed it, lower productivity. So don’t ignore your social life. And don’t overemphasize it either. Keep in balance.
Our career, our profession or business is how we feed our family, pay the bills, and keep our lives moving. If you are ignoring continual education and skill-building in your profession, if you are sagging in your work performance or decision skills, you will soon find yourself out of balance. And this is a critical area supporting all the other areas of your life. Keep in balance. And need I say, some people overemphasize their careers and work. This of course also can be detrimental. Isn’t that word “balance” a handy little thing?
Regardless of your belief system or faith tradition, very few will argue that developing and exercising our spiritual lives is critical for healthy and positive living. Our spiritual lives help guide the way we interpret and deal with relationships to other people, our relationships with ourselves, and how we see the meaning of life and your concept and relationship to God. If you’re out of balance here, you’re in some trouble.
I think you can see how a balanced approach to all seven key areas of your life can keep you at your maximum productivity. But how can you do it?
The fact is that until you assess your performance and the amount of emphasis you are currently placing on each area of your life, you cannot make a dispassionate judgment on whether and what is out of balance. By simply becoming aware of the importance of balance in the various areas of your life, and by being alert to your current emphasis and status in each area, you can begin effecting the necessary changes. Then by applying sound time management tools and techniques, you can begin increasing your productivity, improve your energy and proficiency, and start freeing up more time so you can emphasize other neglected areas of your life.
Try to assess where you stand on the balance scales of your own life. By re-balancing your life keeping it that way, you will succeed in more areas of your life.
So true Phil. Without balance in all areas of our lives, we cannot function from a place of being ground and center. You brought up alot of key points that we should check out once in awhile.
Thanks for the great post,
Val
Val Wilcox´s last blog ..Who Is In Your Target Circle?
Thanks Phil. I try my best to live a balanced life. I get enough family time, enough exercise, spirituality and a lot of work.
I’d say my life is more work focused at present but I know it is and I haven’t just gone into it unknowing. Sometimes it’s ok to have an imbalance when you are focusing on one area of your life to achieve greater goals in this area.
Thanks
Gavin
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Hey Phil…boy there can be so many things that pull on us in every which direction. I’m not sure we can live 100% balanced lives all of the time but I do know that the predominance of our lives should be lived in such a way as to keep all of these areas in their specific place that they need to be. Occasionally one area takes precedence over others but we must be very careful to bring those areas back in line at the proper time.
Thanks so much for your continued wisdom my great friend!
Bruce Backman´s last blog ..The Ring of Power-One Ring to Rule Them All
Hey Phil – I’ve just finished reading your article and watching your 1-minute video. You clearly put some time into this post, and you even have music running in your video, so I was wondering: why aren’t you facing the camera in the video?
I wasn’t used to that angle, and I won’t deny that it distracted me somewhat from your message.
I like that you’re breaking down some ambiguous focus areas, like health, into clear tasks, like drinking 8 glasses of water per day. Also, I like that you’re approaching time management as a quest for balance, which can be beneficial for some people. However, I would argue that without a clearer plan, people won’t have the focus to remember each of these focus areas, and will continue leading “unbalanced” lives. I want to explain how I usually get my clients onto a clear program of time management.
Here’s how I would approach this situation: I would start by reviewing my client’s long-term goals (if you have a family, maybe one of your goals is to get your son enrolled in college.) I would then break these goals down to figure out what I would need to do on a yearly, monthly, weekly and daily basis in order to complete them. Following that, I would work out what my ideal weekday and weekend would look like, and how it would include these tasks. If one of your goals is to run in a marathon, for example, I would say that you should get at least 6 miles of running in on a treadmill or outside once every day. Now we know that about an hour and fifteen minutes needs to be set aside for running, and we incorporate it into the day, using the ideal weekday assessment. If the client likes to exercise after work (I personally think this is the best time, since it breaks up your afternoon nicely), then we’ll schedule it in then.
Now, obviously, there are going to be times when that chunk of scheduled time is unavailable, due to a pressing engagement like a wedding or a sporting event being on television that you want to watch. That’s why I have my clients spend ten or fifteen minutes in the morning planning out how they want to organize or rearrange their day. Sometimes, the client can’t fit the running into the day at all because of one of these engagements. That’s okay, though – as long as you’re conscious of how your time management decisions affects your long-term goals, you’ll make the right decision.
I’m just starting out my time management consulting company, but I use an explicitly no-bullshit system to get people on a time management plan that works for them. I’m actually not even charging a fixed rate at this point. At the program’s completion, I just have my clients pay me whatever they felt the service was worth. If you’re interested in that, contact me at nate [at] cumalu.com or visit my Web site: http://www.cumalu.com.
I’ll definitely be following your blog over the next few weeks, because marketing is definitely not one of my strengths. I’ve also just started following you on Twitter – I’m interested in hearing what advice you can give new business owners
-nate
Thanks for such a thoughtful reply Nate. I couldn’t agree more that understanding up front what you want to achieve is the foundation of a good time management program. I am honored that a pro consultant such as you visited my blog and posted such excellent content! Thanks.
Hi Bruce, Thanks for the comment. Yep, I agree, a fully balanced life 100% of the time is not only impossible, but probably undesirable. Sometimes the kids ball game or the spouses interests have to override other priorities. Excellent points.
Hey Phil – I’ve just finished reading your article and watching your 1-minute video. You clearly put some time into this post, and you even have music running in your video, so I was wondering: why aren’t you facing the camera in the video?
I wasn’t used to that angle, and I won’t deny that it distracted me somewhat from your message.
I like that you’re breaking down some ambiguous focus areas, like health, into clear tasks, like drinking 8 glasses of water per day. Also, I like that you’re approaching time management as a quest for balance, which can be beneficial for some people. However, I would argue that without a clearer plan, people won’t have the focus to remember each of these focus areas, and will continue leading “unbalanced” lives. I want to explain how I usually get my clients onto a clear program of time management.
Here’s how I would approach this situation: I would start by reviewing my client’s long-term goals (if you have a family, maybe one of your goals is to get your son enrolled in college.) I would then break these goals down to figure out what I would need to do on a yearly, monthly, weekly and daily basis in order to complete them. Following that, I would work out what my ideal weekday and weekend would look like, and how it would include these tasks. If one of your goals is to run in a marathon, for example, I would say that you should get at least 6 miles of running in on a treadmill or outside once every day. Now we know that about an hour and fifteen minutes needs to be set aside for running, and we incorporate it into the day, using the ideal weekday assessment. If the client likes to exercise after work (I personally think this is the best time, since it breaks up your afternoon nicely), then we’ll schedule it in then.
Now, obviously, there are going to be times when that chunk of scheduled time is unavailable, due to a pressing engagement like a wedding or a sporting event being on television that you want to watch. That’s why I have my clients spend ten or fifteen minutes in the morning planning out how they want to organize or rearrange their day. Sometimes, the client can’t fit the running into the day at all because of one of these engagements. That’s okay, though – as long as you’re conscious of how your time management decisions affects your long-term goals, you’ll make the right decision.
I’m just starting out my time management consulting company, but I use an explicitly no-bullshit system to get people on a time management plan that works for them. I’m actually not even charging a fixed rate at this point. At the program’s completion, I just have my clients pay me whatever they felt the service was worth. If you’re interested in that, contact me at nate [at] cumalu.com or visit my Web site: http://www.cumalu.com.
I’ll definitely be following your blog over the next few weeks, because marketing is definitely not one of my strengths. I’ve also just started following you on Twitter – I’m interested in hearing what advice you can give new business owners.