Evaluate: “to draw conclusions from examining”.
Evaluate your Work-Life Balance. Have you ever been asked to do that before? Are you familiar with the term Work-Life Balance?
Look online for a definition and you’ll find statements like, “Work-Life Balance demands personal life, professional life, and family life are equal.”
In other words, if our lives were perfectly balanced and we were to see it displayed on a pie chart including work hours, family time, healthy eating, and exercise, it would look something like this:
2019 was not a balanced year for me.
Last year, my work-life balance was “way” off.
In 2018, I started an advanced blogging course and started growing my WordPress skills, but in January 2019 I got serious. I hit the ground running and worked VERY long days.
I set a launch date of April 15, 2019, and announced it to my friends and family so that I could not back out. The closer the launch date got, the longer my hours were.
It was exciting and I loved working on my blog, however, the work didn’t stop once I launched. (Naturally). I became a workaholic at HOME!
My pie chart for 2019, would have definitely looked a little less pretty than the “perfectly balanced” example.
Real-life is more than four areas.
Let’s face it, people have more than just 4 areas of life to balance.
Sure, one could create a list and divide the items into four categories, but it would be much harder to evaluate Work-Life balance if things were simply lumped together in that way.
For most people, today’s pie chart would look more like this (especially you super moms and super dads!):
I’ve improved this year but life happens…
I had a solid start in January but then life happened.
First, my son got sick, then my daughter, and then… well, you get the point. It’s funny how one slight shift can throw off our whole balance. Once that happens, many times, one’s “self-care” takes the biggest hit.
However, I have been committed to living by three words this year: Intention, Connection, and Reflection.
Upon reflection, I realized I needed to shift the focus again (as soon as I could), and that’s what prompted me to write this post and to create a PDF document so that YOU can do a little reflection as well.
Are you ready to Evaluate Your Work-Life balance?
I invited my email subscribers to join me in saying, “YES”.
I said yes to my writing and asked my subscribers to say yes to something as well!
I asked, “What would be true if you said YES to something?” (Instead of waiting until the beginning of the next month).
Say yes!
If you said yes, this is your next step! (And if you didn’t, join us now!).
Evaluate YOUR Work-Life Balance with our easy to use printable PDF at the bottom of this post (It will be waiting for you once you’re done reading this post. It’s an orange box that says “How about a freebie?”) or create your own with pencil and paper if you prefer.
Sometimes we have big aspirations but life gets in the way and it’s hard to squeeze in one more thing!
Putting a little time and a little effort into this “project” may help YOU rearrange your time enough to be able to add your “yes” to your busy schedule!
Start with a list…
Start by reflecting on your last full week and write down all of your ongoing activities.
You can refer to your calendar, email messages, etc., and viewing your banking transactions may help jog your memory as well.
You can make this as detailed or as simple as you like, but detailed will be most helpful for this task.
Next, label by category and start calculating!
You “may” wish to initially list or label your items by category. You can separate them into their own blocks/paragraphs and use a highlighter or colored marker to do this, or you can use post-it notes if you like.
I wrote mine all in one lump paragraph but then used colored pencils to underline the words that I wanted to go into the matching colored pie chart sections.
Doing this may help you when evaluating exactly how much of your time each item takes.
Next, you have two options.
Choose how you wish to calculate.
Now it’s time to calculate your percentages in one of two ways.
I recommend assigning a percentage to each item on your list. However, if you wish to do it by larger categories, that’s okay too. (This is your list after all!).
(The total of these numbers should equal a total of 100%).
Time to create your work-life pie chart!
It’s time to truly evaluate your work-life balance and create your own pie chart!
Follow these easy steps:
First, click on the “How About A Freebie?” image below. It will open up the document in a new web page where you can either:
- Print directly from the page by scrolling over the document until you see the small printer icon (click on it) or:
- In the upper right-hand corner of the screen, you will see a dark blue “sign-in” box. Right next to it you will see an arrow. If you’d like to download the document to peruse and print later, use that option.
Any questions or challenges on this? I’d be happy to help, just let me know.
Note: You should be able to print all pages at once OR choose an individual page as well. This may come in handy if you’re like me and want more than one copy of the “list” page for example. (I tend to re-write lists to make them neat and tidy or rearrange, etc.).
Email me if you need help! kim@kimberlysjoy.com
Now what, Kim?
Great question!
Start this project over the weekend if you can and let me know how you do. It may be a bit of work, but it just might be the eye-opening exercise you need to get yourself on the right track! Remember, you are doing this for YOU. (Allow yourself this time!).
Look at your pie chart when you are done. Does it look pretty balanced? Is there one section that takes over most of your chart? Is there any YOU time in that chart? Is there room to squeeze in your new “yes”?
Ask yourself these questions:
- “Can I delegate any of these activities to someone else?”
- “Would better time management skills help me?”
- “Would time management tools do the trick?”
Next week, in “Part Two”, I will be sharing “oodles” of tips and resources on ways to improve YOUR Work-Life balance! (While I continue to work on this challenge myself!).
We all need a little “me” time. Let’s work on this together!
Happy Weekend!
Fondly,
Kim
If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy reading about our Words for 2020! Click “here” to read about Intention, “here” to read about Connection, and “here” to read about Reflection.
Kimberlysjoy.com may earn an Affiliate Commission if you purchase something through recommended links on this page. (At no additional cost to you!)
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