The large IT consulting company that I used to work for loved touting their “work / life balance” employee benefits program. This program sounded great on paper because it furnished all eligible employees with a company issued laptop and cell phone complete with voice & data plan. I was really excited when I first got my laptop, but later realized that this “benefit” was really just a thinly veiled way to encourage employees to work above and beyond the normal 40 hour week. Programs like this don’t equate to a true work / life balance. In fact, I think that achieving this balance is really difficult to do. I’ve found myself struggling with it even more since starting my business.
Crunch Time
As I’ve said before, I often feel like time and money are in a neck-and-neck race to be my scarcest resource with regard to my business. Of the two, however, scarce time is far harder to manage that scarce money. There are tons of books, blogs and podcasts out there offering productivity and time management advice. For the record, I think there are a lot of good resources out there for this, but it’s really easy to fall into the trap of consuming so much productivity advice that you never get anything done. To do my part, I’m trying to keep this post brief and focused on two very concrete things that I do to maintain a work For this post I’ll focus on a couple of things I do that help me keep my life, my business, and my job moving forward every day.
Getting Organized
I use Google Tasks with three task lists:
- Life: I use the original ‘Default’ task list for my “life” tasks. This could be anything from “changing the A/C filter” to “call the dentist to setup an appointment”.
- Work: I use this task list for my “day job” tasks. The company I work for makes use a work item tracking system internally, and I just use this task list to supplement this. I use it mostly for quick “remember to …..” tasks that I think of during the day but don’t necessarily have time to finish right then and there.
- Business: I use this list for the (ever-growing) list of things that I want/need to do for my business.
Obviously, I spend a lot of time in the “Work” task list. Beyond that, I try to tackle at least one thing from the "Life” and “Business” lists each day. I’m fortunate enough to work from home which has allowed me to try and use the time I might normally use commuting every morning to knock out a task or two from one of my lists. I try to do the same each evening either right after work or sometimes later in the evening after dinner. I also try to glance through the entire “Business” and “Life” lists every day to re-prioritize if needed.
Having a Life
Working from home (and running my business out of my home) affords some benefits, but also makes it easy to fall into the trap of constantly working. Here are two very effective (and easy) ways to keep work thoughts from creeping into your relaxation time:
- Don’t forward your work e-mail to your phone. I know that I won’t be able to ignore a buzzing phone in my pocket, so I remove the temptation by just not automatically downloading my work e-mail to my phone. If needed, I have the ability to manually browse to my work e-mail through the mobile web interface. It’s easy enough to do that I can do it when needed but enough of a nuisance to keep me from doing it constantly. If we’re doing something particularly important or time sensitive at work I might temporarily setup my phone to grab that e-mail automatically, but I’m always sure to turn it off as soon as I can.
- Shut down your computer after work. I’ve always believed in the notion that if you can’t control your behavior you should try to control your environment. By turning off my computer after work I’m reducing the temptation to pop-in to my home office to do something. I can accomplish most things that I want to do from my iPhone (e.g. check my bank balance) without having to turn on my work computer and get sucked into working for 30 minutes.
