Overworked & Overwhelmed? Achieving Life Balance Amidst Chaos — By Shamelle, The Enhanced Life

 

Just as I stepped out to get some groceries this morning, I ran into one of my neighbors. In an effort to be polite (and make conversation!), I asked the typical mundane question, “How are you?”. I was expecting a “Fine thank you, how are you?” but his reply was far from that! To my surprise, he sighed and answered, “Overworked & Overwhelmed”. As a result, what seemed like a 5 minute door-step conversation, made it into a blog post!

 

The challenge of life balance in today's frenetically paced world is without question, one of the most significant struggles faced by most of us. We are overwhelmed by the day- to-day demands of our careers, families, constant tugging from cell phones, internet, a sluggish economy etc.. We often feel there is not enough time in our lives to do the things we need to do, let alone to do the things we want to do!

 

The meaning of life balance may vary for each individual, but one aspect most people agree on is that life balance revolves around time. Guess what, I don’t agree with that and I will tell you why.

 

Twenty four hours. No scientist or philosopher or great individual of the past has ever gotten more! 24 hours... That’s all we get. No amount of wishing, complaining, or creative time management will ever change that.

 

No matter how many personal productivity techniques we master, there will always be more to do than we can ever accomplish in the time we have available to us, no matter how much it is!

 

We’re too busy because we choose to be. It’s not really time management we should be looking into. Even though much has been written about proper time management, the advice is more focused on making more efficient use of time. Wake up early, delegate, etc In fact, too much emphasis on time management makes one obsessive, 

always watching the clock and thinking about what task is scheduled next.

 

 

So perhaps it makes more sense to give precedence to choice management over time management?

 

Decide what comes first. Living a balanced life is about integrating components of your life that are truly important to you and realizing that sometimes you need to make choices about what has to come first.

For something that seems so self-evident to most people, it’s remarkable how many of us struggle to put it to practice! Often, there is a myriad of excuses, the common one being, “I am not disciplined enough.” Perhaps it’s not a discipline problem at all. The problem is more often that the person has not yet sufficiently paid the price to get very clear about what matters most to them. What do you think?

 

By choosing what comes first, sometimes there are sacrifices. But living a balanced life doesn’t require you to give 100 percent of yourself 100 percent of the time. There will be times when personal/family life and work collides but by knowing what’s really most important to you and making choices based on this criterion, you’ll be better able to balance your decisions.

 

Stay close to the shore with your commitments. People who are too nice rarely say no. Faced with too many options and too much pressure, we respond with too many “yes”s. Recognize that you don't have to agree to everything and with everyone. Use your priority criteria to identify requests that simply aren't worth your time.

 

You become what you expect? We all go through life expecting certain things. Rather than having more leisure time, we have less because we expect to do more and others expect us to do more.

Finally…Finding a balance in your life is an ongoing process. Life is in a constant state of change... a work in progress. Allow yourself the time to regularly reassess the direction in which you are heading. Are you on track, or have you temporarily derailed?

 

I am iterating again... We’re too busy because we choose to be. What are your thoughts on this?