A feather on your path - Find your balance
- Lou @ Feathered Paths
- May 19, 2024
- 7 min read
Updated: Jan 8
Because you deserve fulfilment - Your time is precious and balance is key.
The What -
If you have been feeling a little drained lately, concentrate this week on how to create more work-life balance. Even if you feel great, it’s never a bad thing to reassess the balance in your life.
Make a list of all the tasks you did last week. Work tasks, home chores, caring for family, social commitments - as much of it as you can think of. Then give each task a score of 1-10 (10 if it’s really energising, 1 if that task is draining to you). Then focus on the tasks that scored a 3 or less. Look at ways you could change, eradicate or even pass these tasks to someone else to manage.
For ideas on exactly how to do this - read on.
The Why -
Ok, so you've been working your butt off for as long as you can remember because you need to eat, you care about providing for your family and let's face it, we all need a purpose right?
But if it’s all starting to feel a little much, then it probably is! We can all be guilty of the ‘maybe if I do this’ or 'maybe once I achieve that’ I will be happier/more comfortable/a better provider - type thoughts. So we have a habit of taking on a little too much and trying to be everywhere and everything to everyone. Unfortunately, if we aren't careful to manage the balance in our lives, this can turn into balance burnout (typically involving an overindulgence of Twix bars and cheap wine).
So if you are feeling like you are being pulled in too many different directions or don’t have enough time in a day then it might be time to take a look at the balance in your life. Before we do that though, I want to be really clear that there is no such thing as perfect balance and one size most certainly does not fit all. If your career is what makes you feel most alive then by all means work late. If the idea of a ‘relaxing’ massage actually just gives you the ick then fair enough. And If you don’t particularly enjoy taking Auntie Glenda to the chiropodist at the weekend, this doesn't make you a ‘bad’ person.
'You can't have everything you want, but you can have the things that really matter to you.' — Marissa Mayer
The value you gain from different tasks in your life is completely unique and personal so your balance comes down to what makes you happy and gets you moving and relaxing in healthy measures. Other people’s balance or perception of what your life balance ‘should’ be, doesn’t apply. So I will take you through tips, ideas and ways I have improved the balance in my own life but what really matters - is what balance means to you. There is no right or wrong way, so forget about recommendations on what balance you should have in your life and just focus on what value different tasks bring to your days.
Energising versus draining tasks
Balance really is all about how good you feel and how much time you personally want to spend on energising versus draining tasks. Or in other words, how you balance necessities with the things you enjoy doing. So the first step is to work out what the value of each of your tasks are.
If for instance you have a horrible commute home from the office that leaves you stressed every day, the value of this task to you will be a one or a two. On the other hand, you may enjoy your commute as it lets you unwind from the work day and listen to that podcast you love on your way home. So in this case, your commute could actually be a higher value task in your life.
If being a support, parent or carer energises you, as it fills you with pride and purpose then there’s nothing wrong at all in that being the focus of your life. If on the other hand, this really matters to you but it also totally drains you, then it’s really important to balance this necessity with some more energising activities.
So let’s look at this in practice and then how to change it. Here are just 5 example tasks I do in a typical week and how they rank for me;
Task | 10- Energising 1- Draining | Notes | Solution |
Walking my dog | 9 | Valuable to my balance | Schedule more dog walks, use lunch breaks for this more often |
Actioning work emails | 3 | Important to my job but draining to me | Email batching/ first job of the day/ time limit set |
Cooking dinner | 4 | Important but sometimes draining | Swap cooking for micro or cup meals on swimming days |
Reading my personal emails | 2 | Rarely important info, time consuming | Reduce time/ unsubscribe from irrelevant emails |
Swimming | 8 | Valuable to me and energising | Diarise on repeat to ensure I find the time to swim |
So for me, walking my dog and swimming are highly energising and rewarding but swimming isn't essential and my dog hates walking in the rain. (Ok, it’s mostly me that hates it but he isn't a fan of getting his coat wet either). So my energising tasks are the most important to my balance but unfortunately also the easiest to put off or ‘not have time for’.
My draining tasks on the other hand are things like actioning work emails and cooking dinner. Unfortunately these are pretty essential. A girl's gotta eat! (and buy shoes, lots of shoes)
Okey doke! But what’s the solution??
Well first things first - dog walks and swimming are going in the diary! Every week, like clockwork, however many times I want to go. They are an important appointment that I cannot miss. (Well ok, occasionally but not often!)
As for the essential but draining tasks - I am trialling email batching and so far it’s working wonders! I also diarise this and i've unsubscribed from tons of pointless emails I was receiving and just deleting anyway. I’ve made the decision to just have a ready meal or a cuppa soup on the days I swim. It might not be what a nutritionist would recommend but hey i’m going swimming, I will work it off in the pool anyway ;)
So with just a few tweaks, I now have far better balance! It didn't cost me a dime, took me very little time to change and I haven't actually given anything up. But hey presto! I have a more balanced week ahead of me.
Ironically, the more busy and draining your life is, the more you need to do this but the less time you have to do it right? But I promise this won’t take you long and it’s so worth doing to get yourself some more balance. So to make it super easy, you can find a free blank task list to use under the 'Organisation and Balance' section of Feathered Paths Resources - Here.
Fill it out and rank your own weekly tasks to see how balanced your days are currently.
Once you have ranked the value of your tasks, here are some ideas of how to change or eradicate the low value tasks;
Hire someone if you can for things like admin, cleaning, washing, ironing
Use some give and take - Find out what drains others around you that might actually be energising to you. could you offer to swap these tasks with a friend/family member/colleague?
Invest in tech to lighten the load - task management apps, AI bots and robot hoovers have given me back hours of my life. I say bring on the robot uprising!
Don’t be afraid to ask for help, a lot of people are energised by helping others.
Unsubscribe from junk emails and review notifications on your phone. Do you really need to know every time Betty from primary school posts a new picture of her cat?
Prep meals and snacks in advance so when you are hungry and tired the majority is already done.
Make your energisers the priorities in your diary. Don’t ‘fit them in’ - plan them in first, the other stuff can fit around what you need for your well-being.
Automate as much as possible - repeat orders, deliveries, reminders. The more you set up today, the less you will have to do tomorrow.
If it’s not just certain tasks that drain you but also certain people in your life, find ways to manage the time you need to spend with them. Learn to say ‘No’. The more you say it, the less people will be surprised or bothered by it and the more easily they will accept it.
Be really honest with yourself about what actually energises/drains you. No one else needs to know so no one is going to judge you.
So now i’m hoping you have a starting point with some ideas of how to get your balance, your way. It’s super important you take a little time to do this if you have been feeling drained lately. You are valuable and you deserve to have balance in your life.
If you want to go a step further in your quest for balance, check out the resources at the bottom of this page for more tips, ideas on jobs that offer work-life balance and even a free course on time management.
The Who -
This Feather came about from a training course I attended at work. The course was about avoiding burnout from work loads and a lot of the ideas and content were useful. But I came away thinking ‘It’s not just work that drains me!’ Sometimes it’s the housework, the traffic or coming up with ideas of what to cook for dinner, that I haven’t already cooked five times this month.
So I spent some time going through my week and applying some of the ideas from the course to my home life. The most useful ideas being diary management, automation and give and take. These were all about managing work loads in an office environment but if anything I have found them to be even more useful in my home life!
So even if you just want to jot down a few tasks for now and tackle these, please do. Your time is precious and balance is key to well-being.
Lou @ Feathered Paths Xx
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