Use your weeks wisely.

If I live to be 80, I have 4,000 weeks on the earth (4,160 to be exact). The weeks takes on greater meaning as the calendar turns to a new year. When I was 20, time seemed infinite. When I was 40, less so.

Give your all to your career (effort, but not time). Work shouldn't be the thing that defines you. I made mistakes in the past, believing that I had to be heavily-tilted towards work to be a good husband and father...but I found the opposite to be true. I learned a few things along the way that helped me use my weeks more wisely:

• Meals Matter: Pick 3 days a week when you'll be home for breakfast and dinner with the family. Kids and spouses need to know that you prioritize them and are present when it matters.
• Presence Matters: Your family needs you present physically and, more importantly, emotionally. I've been at my best at home and work when I rejected distraction and committed myself to giving all of my attention and mindshare to the persons around me.
• Improve Others: Do this through mentoring, community involvement, charitable pursuits.
• Ignore Others: There will be people at work and life who will demean or dismiss you. If you wouldn't ask advice from them then reject them.
• Take Vacations: Don't let your family go without you; I did this once but never again. Work will be there when you return, but time with family won't.
• Have Interests: At home, see your friends, get involved in the community, join groups. At work, teach, guide, mentor others.

All of the actions listed here worked for me very well over the course of my life and career and improved me personally and professionally.

When work is out of balance, life needs to be in balance...and vice-versa. The only way to offset the imbalances and to make sure your 4,000 weeks are spent wisely is to have many things that inspire, energize and fulfill you at work and home. Absent these things, what you do at work is what becomes your life, and that's a risky proposition.

I've been fortunate to recently being given the gift of time to re-commit to my family, to re-claim me. I was able to put some of those 4,000 weeks to very good use.