Creating balance between work and home is not black and white. The boundaries are often blurry. The word balance is defined by Dictionary.com as: “a state of equilibrium or equipoise; equal distribution of weight, amount, etc.” Equal Distribution? When trying to balance your life it is nor realistic to think you can equally distribute your time between work and home. Bridging the gap between work and home balance is about finding a flow or rhythm that your life moves by.
Think back to riding a see-saw as a child. Like a see-saw our lives are in constant motion. Part of the fun of a see-saw is going up and down and not staying in a fixed position for a long period of time. Even if you have one person who outweighs another person, you can still maintain motion on the see saw. It is all about keeping your knees flexible and using the right amount of strength to maintaining a steady motion. Finding balance in our lives is not about being stationary and still, no one wants to be on a see-saw alone sitting at the bottom of the sand box. It is about being flexible and finding the right rhythm.
When I speak to people about managing their time at work and home, I often hear things like “I’m organized at work but not at home”. So how can someone be organized in one area of their life and not another? In many cases it is about having systems in place that support being organized. At work there is typically more of a structure in place usually in the form of policies and procedures. They are there to make sure you know the rules and how things operate. At home, this is typically not the case. As the woman of the house we are often the person responsible for making and enforcing the rules of the house. But most of us have never considered writing down or establishing these rules. It can be difficult for women to see that running their house may be very similar to running their business or being CEO of a corporation.
Here are three key ingredients for running a high performing office or a smooth sailing home:
1. Have systems and policies in place that support staying organized and saving time. Creating your policies and procedures at work probably makes logical sense. At home this may seem a little unnatural. Creating a simple list of all the meals you know how to cook will help when you are choosing what to cook for the upcoming week and having your meals planned in advance can reduce trips to the grocery store. If you have children you should write down the rules for dinner time. For example, no toys at the table, who helps set the table, and who cleans up the dishes.
2. Delegate, delegate, delegate. When you know what steps are necessary to complete a task you can easily pass along that information to someone else. At the age of four children can begin taking on more responsibilities around the house, especially at dinner time. There are only 24 hours in each day, but eliminating little tasks by delegating them to children, family, or hired help will help you gain hours back in your week. Your time is more valuable than what you would pay someone to mow your lawn, clean your house, or do your grocery shopping.
3. Have a filing system in place that works, makes sense to you, and that you use. This is critical in both the home and the office. If you do not have a filing system that supports you, you will end up with piles of paper and mail, most of which can go directly into the recycle bin. When you have a good filing system that supports you, you can quickly put things away and easily find them when you need them. This will save you time from digging through stacks of paper.
So which one of these items can you work on to bridge the gap between work and home balance? What seems more pressing or critical to you right now? Which item do you think you could easily integrate into your work or home life so you can gain more time for what really matters?
Remember, maintaining balance is about finding the rhythm in your life and putting structures and systems in place to support you. When the ups and downs are happening in a nice easy rhythm that is what makes the see-saw fun. It is the abrupt halts that make the ride painful and scary.
Written originally for w2wlink by Angela Ploetz.
Angela Ploetz,
is a Certified Professional Organizer (CPO®) and owner of POSH Space Professional Organizing Specialist serving the greater Austin area. Angela is an experienced speaker and addresses women’s and business groups. POSH space provides solutions for home and office organizing challenges, specializing in residential paper and filing systems, home offices, small business organization, new home set-ups and move-ins, and student organization. Angela can be reached at www.theposhspace.com or info@theposhspace.com.