How To Achieve A Work-Life Balance

 The people we often admire the most are those that have a sense of balance in their lives – they are successful in their workplaces yet know when it’s time to go home to family and friends and invest in individual pursuits. Many entrepreneurs battle to get this balance right – their business becomes their world, often to the detriment of their personal lives. Here are some guidelines for managing your work time effectively in order to enjoy stress-free quality time after hours...
Prioritise –
successful leaders may vary greatly in their aptitude and personality, but they have one trait in common: a talent for getting the right things done. They can separate the wheat from the chaff and send the latter elsewhere. It takes courage and foresight to concentrate on the important over the urgent; realising that it’s impossible to do it all.
The art of scheduling –
this involves looking at your calendar for the days, weeks and months ahead and filling in essential activities – upcoming meetings, business trips and, importantly, vacation time. This will help you to get a realistic overview of how much discretionary time you have available. Remember to leave room for the unexpected; in fact, you may even want to clear out time on your daily calendar for unforeseen events.
A slot for strategic thinking –
The best in business agree that spending time in deep, strategic contemplation is one of the most important things to do. It doesn’t necessarily need to be at your desk – some think best when they’re on the treadmill or driving to work; but rather allocate time for this outside of family time so you don’t deprive your loved ones of your full attention by getting lost in thoughts around your business.
Manage those meetings –
The only thing that stands between dismal meetings and productive ones is discipline. The basic principles of having an effective chairperson and sticking to an agenda need to be enforced to ensure that meetings do not constitute hours of time which could have been spent more productively in other ways.
Get a grip on your inbox –
it’s been said time and time again but the only way to ensure that your email doesn’t become all-consuming is to block out periods in the day when you check and respond to mails. If you check every three hours or so there is little chance of missing something of earth-shattering importance, and most of the time your email is an obstacle to productivity rather than an enabler.
Learn to say no –
As Peter Drucker writes in The Effective Executive: "If the pressures, rather than the executive, are allowed to make the decision, the important tasks will predictably be sacrificed." Saying no means being okay with the fact that you’re going to displease people regularly. But until we figure out how to add an extra hour to the clock, this is probably the best technique you need to learn to manage your time.

By Nicole Cameron