The Pursuit of Work/Life Balance

As an entrepreneur, much of my effort is spent creating a divide between “work” and “life” with the intention of striking the perfect balance. Great pains are taken to ensure the business is in its own bucket, not to be contaminated with the chaos that is my personal life… but like many of you I am sure, one bucket seems to steadily spill into the other.

So here I am, writing again on the topic of “being vs doing”. My reality is that it all boils down to my life, with no hard line between the professional and the personal no matter how many ways I try and draw it in.

“Be in love with your life.”
My business coach and I reflected on the brainstorming sessions of the past year and some things became clear. Some sessions were overflowing with excitement and energy, these were all tied to “being” types of words and phrases. Other sessions fell flat, full of “doing” words; the simple act of reviewing them felt heavy. So we took something complicated and made it simple: Embrace what you have. The time is now. Love your life.

Can you have being without doing?
Instead of thinking “how do I achieve the perfect work/life balance?” we are shifting to “how do I find a better being/doing balance?”

Zoe and I have been working together for over a year, collaborating to build content for a variety of clients. I reached out to her and we decided to take a tag-team approach to this article.

An Amy & Zoe look at setting the tone for better Work/Life Balance

Amy Says…

Take inventory on your current obligations and which, if any, can be altered or delegated.

For me, the best place to start is by evaluating where you are now. Begin by separating your life into buckets, such as family, work, household, volunteer/community, side gig, health/fitness…

Once you have your buckets it’s easier to see how full they are. Rate each bucket from 1 – 10, with 10 being “I wouldn’t change a thing!”

It is important to know that each of us has different buckets, and each of us will have a different time/energy allocation for each bucket. This can depend on the overall feel that particular bucket gives us. Some people may have feelings of High Energy/Passion/Excitement with their “Work Bucket” and score it a 10. For others this same bucket might conjure feelings of Stress/Overwhelm/Dread, scoring it a 4 and identifying a problem area.

Keep in mind that you can score a bucket a 10 and that doesn’t mean it’s perfect, it means it’s perfect for you right now. The goal is to keep each bucket fairly evenly filled.

Zoe Says…

Shifting from a perfection mindset into a grateful mindset is a great way to start.

How many of us are chasing the “perfect work/life balance”? Instead of aiming for the “perfect”, let’s aim for gratitude.

The polished in-between bits of life are often highlighted on social media and trick us into believing that someone else has the perfect work-life (or being/doing) balance. Not only do most business owners these days run a business page on social media but we often have a personal page. We are either curating our own posts or analyzing what others are doing to keep up with the trends and our pages at the top of our audience’s newsfeed.

Constant digestion of other people’s seemingly perfect lives can leave us feeling deflated, “less than” and phony. Smile, take a picture, edit, post with the perfect caption then look around and see a sink full of dishes, unfiled paperwork, a garden in need of tending and children arguing over menial things.

My favorite detox to do is a social media detox. If there are any accounts that trigger:

• “not good enough” feelings within you; or
• “I should be doing more” thoughts; or
• “why is my life/family/house/children/body not perfect like @XYZ?”

Simply unfollow!

Unfollowing people and pages that bring you down frees up a lot of emotional space. It makes room for you to pay attention to the accounts that remind you how wonderful, messy and imperfect this precious life is.

By replacing perfect with gratitude, we can start to appreciate the ebbs and flows of this life. The ups and downs, the times to take action and the times to just be.

The Amy & Zoe List of try-it-yourself tips that you can do NOW to help achieve your work/life balance: 

Diminish Distractions

• Utilize the Do Not Disturb feature. Do not be a slave to never-ending notifications! If you value your sleep, set the default from 10 pm to 7 am every day. Take it a step further and manually switch to this mode when you’re with friends or trying to focus on something. Let your friends and family know that if they ever need to reach you in an emergency, just call twice in a row. Most phones have a setting that will override the do not disturb in this instance (or similar, do what works for you!).
• Prepare an Agenda. Use the notes section of virtual (Zoom) and calendar meeting invites to outline a clear agenda and stick to the time allotted.
• Keep de-cluttering, or better, stop adding to the clutter! No matter what, clutter tends to accumulate. Revisiting areas annually keeps them from turning into massive jobs again in the future. Cleaning, decluttering and organizing are actually great “doing” tasks that can benefit the “being” you. It can be very therapeutic and energizing to organize your space. If you’re visually motivated you can take extra enjoyment in snapping before and after shots!

Get Happy

• Express Your Gratitude. If a journal has always been a nice idea that you can’t quite commit to, try using social media or a gratitude jar or whiteboard, whatever fits your life.Amy has been doing this in two ways:
  1) with her kids – kids are so anxious these days she made it part of their bedtime routine to recap “5 Things I Liked About My Day”.
  2) Using social media to share one good thing that happened in her day. She doesn’t get too hung up on this. Some days there are 2 things, other days there are no things, the odd day is a memory share.
• Live in the Now. Many of us are so busy working to attain something (a vacation, a promotion, a lucrative side gig) that we overlook what we have right now.
• Try a Walk and Talk Meeting! Zoe and Amy don’t live far from each other so they periodically like to touch base in person. They took advantage of the gorgeous weather on a spring day and brainstormed during a 30-minute walk.

When you exercise, your body releases chemicals such as dopamine (pronounced doh-pa-meen) and endorphins (en-door-fins) in your brain that make you feel happy. Not only is your brain dumping out feel-good chemicals, but exercise also helps your brain get rid of chemicals that make you feel stressed and anxious. {SOURCE}

Be Intentional

• Establish your 3. This daily routine of identifying a “top three” is a game-changer. Choose a time each day to do this, a good time is when you’re winding down your work day and preparing for the next.
• Schedule your productive time. For example, determine what time(s) each day you will check and reply to emails and messages and stick to it. This one can be hard to adhere to but makes a profound difference to your overall energy. Zoe goes further to identify this is another benefit of our project management tool. Basecamp is better than email for work projects, it allows you to stay focused on the task at hand.
• Schedule time off. And this does not just apply to your annual vacation time! If you have a kid’s event coming up, or want to make sure you get in your daily walk or monthly massage… even schedule what time you want to finish work for the day and what days of the week you are working (particularly for those of you who work from home or run your own business).

I am a visual person so being able to photo-document my days brings me joy. The photos in this post are shots captured on my evening walks with family. It’s fun to stop and really notice the beauty all around us. As part of my effort to simplify and declutter, I make a point of ensuring that my smartphone is equipped with a decent camera. However using your phone for photographs can sometimes lead to distractions and taking me out of the “now”. So I make a habit of being out of service and/or putting my phone in “do not disturb” mode on weekends. – Amy Perzan Merrill

If there ever is a time to disconnect from the grind and just “be” it’s summer in Canada. Use this time to shift your daily habits by incorporating some (or all!) of the above ideas then remember to check back in with yourself. Being in love with your life is like being in love with a family member – you don’t expect perfection and you have to accept the challenges to truly appreciate the rewards.

Want more fabulous fun reads like this smashing article?

Click here to add your name to our list, we send an email once a month to let you know when our new article is published.