How to Easily Create Work-life Balance, Part 2

In Part 1, we explored how a focus on life quality, exercise and sleep can impact your work-life balance.  In Part 2, we look at time management and then explore when it might be appropriate to get a career coach.

Manage your time

I know what you are thinking, "Time management, duh, of course, time management is important!" This term, unfortunately, is also thrown about by coaches and consultants as a fix everything / diagnose everything panacea. "You need better time management!" is the battle cry!

So, let me simplify this for you. Career coaching/business coaching clients seem to suffer most from information overload: there is so much coming at them from all their devices, software tools, and gadgets that they spent their time in reactivity and being overwhelmed. If this sounds like you, I have four suggestions for you to try out:

• Schedule your email
• Get Unroll.me
• Create "Do Not Disturb" times
• Use a Kanban

Schedule Email

It is easy to understand, hard to do. Check email once each day in the afternoon. Let people know you only check email once each day. Add a line to your signature that says exactly that. Orient people that you work with to call you on the phone (or better yet, make a phone appointment with you) if they need a response immediately. When you do reply, schedule those messages that you respond to so they go out after 4 pm or save those messages as drafts and send them out manually.

This strategy turns your email back into email -- as opposed to instant messaging, or chat, which it is not! By replying to email at the end of the day, you preserve "I respond to my email the day I get it" mentality while not giving the other person a chance to email you back that very same day then getting agitated that you didn't respond that same day to their second email!

Unroll.me

Imagine getting one email each day that contains a summary along with a larger thumbnail of each email from the lists you subscribe to and that each of these emails is tagged with a label so you can see them all and delete them quickly. And you can DECIDE whether or not you want to delve into the list or not each day instead of having to sort through them all. That is exactly what Unroll.me does.

Here's a glimpse of my "Rollup" from yesterday:

As you can see, you have a choice to unsubscribe, roll-up the list or keep it in your inbox. Just look at those numbers an imagine what life was like sorting through 1241 messages from lists instead of 170 plus one roll up!

When I was just a boy, I imagined myself spending time as a firefighter, helping people (and indeed I am a volunteer firefighter and EMT). I did not imagine myself spending time sitting in front of a computer monitor sorting through tons of email messages from email lists. Free yourself from this prison! Get unroll.me.

Do Not Disturb

Another prison most people find themselves sentenced to is the 5-inch space of their cell phone screen. Imagine how much time we spend confined to this space?! And when the warden wants your attention, whether through beeping, vibrating, dinging, or even flashing, we respond, like Pavlov's dogs, stop whatever we are doing, pick up the phone and look at it. It is crazy. Just crazy.

I want you to make another decision and identify times for a prison break -- or at the very least visitation from a significant loved one or friend. Turn the phone off. My Nexus 6 has a Do Not Disturb function on it, and I have it set every night from 8 pm until 8 am the next morning. The only thing that gets's through are alarms, calls from people who I have "starred" and any calls from the same number that calls again within 15 minutes. Check your phone for this option or, alternatively, download an app that lets you do this. Or you can just turn your phone off.

Looking for an even prison break? Why not stage a prison riot? This is easy and can have an enormous impact on your relationships. All you have to do is negotiate "Do Not Disturb" times with your family/spouse. In other words, times when all messaging and information electronics are OFF. (That means your tablet isn't sitting next to you with IMDB or Wikipedia ready to look up those arcane factoids while you are supposed to be watching a movie with your family or playing a board game). You will reclaim your life and find balance by cultivating those things that you were ignoring with the people who matter.

Use a Kanban

The last prison I broke out of was my to-do list. Believe me, I tried them all, ToDoist, Remember the Milk, Franklin Covey, GTD. If it is out there, I tried it. After all, I am a career and business coach and therefore have a sense of responsibility to know this task list and that task list so I can help clients better prioritize and achieve their goals.

I don't know how, but luckily one day I stumbled upon the Kanban. This tool, developed by an engineer at Toyota in the 1940s and 1950s is incredibly simple, powerful and cheap. All you need is sticky notes (the super sticky ones work best), and something big enough to stick them on that can be broken into three columns:

1. to-do
2. currently working on
3. done

You can use masking tape to delineate the columns. Then move things around as you are working on them working on no more than 3-5 things at any time (meaning you only have 3-5 things in the middle column). You work on these until they are done (at which time you move them into the third column) or if your priorities shift move them back into the first column as you replace them with something else. The result is that your task list becomes purposeful, and you will find yourself feeling in control of your to-do list instead of your to-do list being in control of you.

Here is my Kanban:

When to Get a Career Coach

You know what to do, but you aren't doing it. Simply put that is why you get a coach.

You have read five self-help books on Amazon about being happy and still find yourself unhappy. You have spoken to your family doctor, nutritionist, even joined a gym, but you are still fat. You know you need to take time off from work, take vacations and spend time with your spouse, but divorce is looming on the horizon because you just don't have your priorities right.

A good career coach will help you clarify your values, figure out what to do and help you get there by supporting you, holding you accountable, opening your eyes to see that which you don't want to see and more. A good career coach will help you get unstuck. But beware, there are many charlatans out there! Anyone can become a coach. (Really. I got my dog certified as a holistic wellness coach and a relationship workshop coach). So, before you sign on the dotted line and drink some snake oil, be sure to read this article on how to find a career coach.

Looking for more?

Be sure to download the Career Balance Pack.