Introduction Work-Life Balance
The arrival of the computer caused a split in work-life balance. For a while, this fissure remained an inactive fault line. The earthquake hit when computers started speaking to each other. Connectivity collapsed work and life into a pile of rubble. Now, we are left to sort through the aftermath. How did this happen?
Sometime in the eighties, a modem dialed up a computer that sat on your laptop. AOL turned SOL, which caused you to yell, ”Yahoo” while Google-ing to yourself. Get LinkedIn and munch on a Blackberry in your space or Myspace, which became no space when faced with a Facebook. There was a Flickr that YouTube(d) or Reddit. Don’t be a Twitter or a Tumblr. Follow along. Hashtag #thehashtagarrived. My phone was yours, and yours was an iPhone. What’s better than one square? Foursquare. You found ways to get over the daily Grindr. The only gram, worth a damn, is an Instagram, which raised your Pinterest; however, it was permanent, so you shared a Snapchat.
Connectivity got so heavy you needed broadband for support. Google+ burned from loose Tinder. Work cut us Slack to listen to the clock go TikTok. Just when you thought you understood, Google became an entire Alphabet, Facebook’s facelift was so beautiful it was Meta, and the artist formerly known as Twitter became an X.
Computer connectivity is here, along with its impact on work-life balance. The work-at-home entrepreneur has two choices: Adopt the hermit lifestyle or deal with it. I’ll save the solitary advice for Thoreau. Follow my two-phase approach to balancing work and life by committing to a schedule and minimizing interruptions.
“Life is like riding a bicycle; to keep your balance, you must keep moving.”—Albert Einstein.
Commit to a Schedule
Although you may find scheduling life tedious, it is essential to success. Without a schedule, life mimics a three-year-old at a candy store.
I empathize with the hesitance to schedule because I was that person. Until I scheduled, and it worked. Try it for a few weeks. If you do not see improvement, drop it.
Enough psychobabble. Let’s discuss how to schedule. Finding your scheduling process requires trial and error, but all successful schedules:
- Life Scheduling
- Avoid Overcommitting
- Learn From Past Schedules
Life Scheduling
Life scheduling means picking a scheduling tool, scheduling all activities, reducing tasks into actionable steps, and aligning tasks with energy levels. Captain Obvious tells us to choose a scheduling tool first. You have several options to choose from. First, you can use handwritten lists and calendars (tedious but workable). Second, utilize your computer’s base software calendar and task list functions. Visit the following link that matches your system: Office 365, Google Tasks, and Mac Activity Monitor.
Third, go hardcore and employ project management software. Alternatively, you can maintain a spreadsheet like I do. If you want the one I use (plus six other tools) to balance work and life, join our newsletter. Nevertheless, pick what works for you, as the only crime is not choosing a system.
Now, all to-dos must leave your head and enter your schedule. Emptying your mind eliminates the stress of remembering. Besides, who doesn’t love the dopamine rush of crossing tasks off a list?
What goes on the schedule? Actionable tasks. Consider a goal like founding a business. It’s too vague. Break down opening a company into subtasks such as brainstorming business ideas, market research, and legal formation. Again, ask yourself if these new tasks are specific enough to complete.
In the previous example, market research is still too broad. Split it into subtasks such as finding keywords, reviewing competitor sites, etc. Continue subdividing until the tasks equal four hours or less. Broad tasks confuse and encourage procrastination. For more discussion on avoiding procrastination, visit Stop Procrastination: Break Free to Unlock Your Hidden Potential.
“Inch by inch, life’s a cinch. Yard by yard, life is hard.”—John Bytheway.
The final piece to scheduling involves matching tasks with energy levels. For example, my attention and energy peak in the morning and wane in the late afternoon. Therefore, my early tasks focus on brainstorming, writing, calculating, and creating. Between three and four P.M., I switch to low-energy tasks such as email, social media, website updates, organization, schedule updates, and research. Align your energy cycle with appropriate tasks and enjoy increased productivity. For productivity tips, see Productivity Secrets 1: Love Your Home-Based Business With Extra Time and Productivity Secrets 2: Unstoppable Strategies to Energize Your Work.
Scheduling whole lives requires considerable effort from work-at-home entrepreneurs, but the payback is worth it. Follow the listed techniques to improve your work-life balance.
“A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.”—Annie Dillard.
Avoid Overcommitting
Here’s a true story. I committed to a schedule with enthusiasm and loaded it with tasks. Halfway through the first day, I finished only half of the tasks for that period. As the week progressed, I fell further and further behind. What happened? I overcommitted.
Failing to complete tasks on schedule frustrates beginners and often causes them to quit scheduling. Trial and error taught me to design a realistic schedule. Learn from my mistakes and schedule effectively by setting realistic timeframes, saying No, and delegating.
I hate it when people say, “Give me five minutes.” Why? Because nothing lasts five minutes. Don’t abuse your schedule with the five-minute mentality. Add a 25–50% buffer to time estimates until you gain more experience. Similarly, leave open time blocks of half an hour for every three planned hours, allowing catch-up time.
Next, eliminate tasks on your schedule with the power of No. Say No in three ways: speak it, use it to back out of prior commitments, and reserve it during high-energy periods.
As social beings, saying Yes is a natural response to requests. It’s time to introduce a little No into your life and refuse uninteresting requests and those you can’t handle. The alternative is signing up for tasks you can’t or won’t do, which alienates the requestor more than saying No upfront.
In addition, say No to previous commitments that lose value. Your interests, workload, and opportunities change. Realign your outside commitments to your new priorities. Close the old book. New chapters await.
Delay Yeses while energy is high. During energetic periods, say, “Sounds like a great idea, but I have a lot going on. Let me get back to you.” When energy ebbs, review the request by asking, “Is this commitment worth more than the activity it will replace or delay?” Often, this process turns a Yes into a No.
“The oldest, shortest words, ‘Yes’ and ‘No,’ are those which require the most thought.”—Pythagoras
When you can’t say No, consider delegating. Seek support from employees, partners, and family members or outsource. Delegation frees your time and energy to focus on priorities. If you need ideas for items to delegate, see my STERSAD discussion on the next page. Mastering your schedule means understanding the value of your time. Say No when possible, delegate liberally, and work-life balance will improve.
Learn From Past Schedules
Reflecting on former schedules shows where you spend time, enabling goal measurement and adjustment. Here’s a mental process to evaluate your goals.
Picture work and life on opposite sides of a balance scale.
Sort out every task you’ve actively worked on into work or life (it’s ok if a task is both). Add up the hours on each side. Is the scale leaning a certain way or just crashing to one side? Are there tasks that are disproportionate in size? Large tasks are prime candidates for process improvement efforts.
After the scale test, revise work and life goals until you have around three per category. Label each goal as on target, mixed, or off target. Review past schedules and tally cumulative hours spent per goal. For each goal, ask if you paid too little or too much time based on target status. Rebalance work and life in this manner once a month.
Do not confuse activity for progress. Stop being a duck spinning your legs underwater while sitting still on the lake of life. Embrace the power of scheduling. Let it transform chaos into order one planned moment at a time.
Minimize Interruptions
A schedule is worthless without execution. Nothing degrades execution more than interruptions, and work-from-home entrepreneurs can’t afford to waste time getting interrupted.
Follow the strategies below to minimize interruptions:
- Say No to Alerts and Spam
- Batching
- Setting Conditions for Life Harmony
- Communication
“We are not that busy; we are just distracted.”—Shawn Wells, The Energy Formula: Six life changing ingredients to unleash your limitless potential.
Say No to Alerts and Spam
For a quick victory, turn off alerts. The big three, phone (via texts), email, and social media, trigger most alerts. Open the settings for all three and turn off sound and visual alerts. Then, spend the next week or two turning off any alert generators you missed.
After fixing alerts, unsubscribe or block anything without value in your email and text inboxes. Some email providers, like Outlook, show all your subscriptions and allow mass unsubscribing within one location. Remember to address new alerts and spam as they appear.
Batching
Every application switch requires transition and setup time, which are a form of distraction. To minimize lost time, batch—complete similar tasks during a dedicated block of time. Batching requires three steps: group like tasks, schedule group time blocks, and complete group tasks during appropriate time blocks.
To find batching opportunities, return to the big three of alerts—phone, email, and social media—and add any recurring task requiring at least two hours per week.
For clarity, let’s discuss how I batch my email. I check email twice daily, 8:00–8:30
A.M. and 3:30–4:00 P.M. I address any email that takes less than five minutes. For lengthier responses, convert them into tasks and add them to the schedule.
Replicate this approach with social media, phone calls, texting, and other major work areas. Batch your way to more time and improved work-life balance.
Setting Conditions for Life Harmony
Life harmony does not happen by chance—set conditions for success to avoid interruptions by designing distraction avoidance into your home office and grooming yourself.
What constitutes a quality workspace? Dedicate a specific space solely for work, preferably a separate room. Other considerations include turning your desk to minimize viewable distractions and avoiding high-traffic areas like walkways, kitchens, and entrances.
Turn your focus from where your space is to what’s in it. Home-based entrepreneurs need the right tools to succeed. The number one tool for a home office is the computer. At a minimum, your computer needs the following hardware and software.
- Hardware
- Sufficient Memory and Processing Power
- Monitors (I use three)
- Ergonomic Mouse and Keyboard Setup
- Niche Specific Hardware
- Software
- Productivity Suite (MS Office, Google Workspace, iWork, etc.)
- Communication
- Application
- Niche Specific Software
Other tools include furniture, office supplies, and comfort items like humidifiers. For a comprehensive list of what makes a great home office, sign up for my email list and receive a free Home Office Checklist and six other freebies.
Working from home tempts you to forgo regular grooming.
“It’s a trap!”—Admiral Ackbar in Star Wars: Episode VI—Return of the Jedi.
Just because you can walk around in pajamas all day does not mean it is a good idea. Be serious about work by taking a shower and wearing stylish clothes. Looking sharp isn’t just for scissors.
Not having a suitable workspace, the right tools, or maintaining yourself causes distractions. Treat yourself and your job with dignity and respect by addressing these areas.
Communication
Communication supports the previously mentioned strategies like a center beam buttresses a roof. Convey boundaries and availability through consistency, status within communication tools, verbal and nonverbal cues, and planning for on call situations.
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” — George Bernard Shaw.
Consistency is a form of communication, so follow a predictable schedule. Same task, same time. Day after day, week after week. Regularity allows family, friends, and work colleagues to learn your patterns. Reinforce predictability with an On-Off schedule for work and life. When people attempt to violate your Off periods, only respond during On periods.
Communicate your available hours through software tools. First, display times in social media status updates, voicemails, and email signatures. Second, set up autoresponders to send availability responses to incoming messages while you’re offline. Third, use an electronic calendar and share access with partners and family members.
Reinforce the above methods with nonverbal and verbal communication. Nonverbal cues come in several forms. Use a “Do not disturb” sign or red light to show roommates when you are working. When pop ins occur, find your inner George Costanza. Look annoyed and only turn your head toward the interloper while speaking.
When the subtle approach fails, it’s time to be direct. Say, “Sorry, but I am busy right now. Let’s pick a time to discuss this later.” If you do not protect your work-life balance, who will?
Some situations—sick loved ones, schools, daycare, or critical business partners demand immediate attention. You can’t ignore or postpone these contacts. Instead, design a process to minimize distractions when handling them.
A quality emergency system reduces distractions by utilizing technology, defining emergencies, managing transitions, and splitting up on call situations.
Leverage technology in two ways. Buy a “Bat Line”—a cheap dedicated phone line or app for emergencies. Or set up an application’s “Do Not Disturb” feature to allow exceptions.
Don’t let Commissioner Gordon use your Bat Line to ask you to track down a petty theft. Define the nature of calls that warrant interruption to your personal and professional circles. Also, mitigate transitions by taking notes after interruptions to reduce setup time when you return to the task. Finally, split on-call hours with your domestic or business partners.
“You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.”—Winston S. Churchill.
Interruptions kill work-life balance like weeds kill grass. Protect your work-life balance by deploying the above strategies.
Conclusion Work-Life Balance
Freelancers, entrepreneurs, and the entire work from home community love to talk about work-life balance, yet they do little to achieve it. Don’t follow the path of burnout, inefficiency, strained relationships, and poor health.
Be intentional about work-life balance. Remember, work-life balance is a seesaw. There is no stop, only constant adjustments every day, hour, and minute.
I love recommendations and advice. Please leave them in the comments section or email me. Speaking of advice, I’d love for you to comment and read my article You Think Wrong: Insider Truths About Work-At-Home Myths debunking 9 myths about home-based entrepreneurship.
For background on the who, what, and why of remoteworkadvice.com, see our Home Page. I would love to hear from you and learn how you manage work-life balance. Thank you for reading and continue striving to balance work and life.