7 steps for more joyful work+life balance: Be intentional with time

Your time is your most valuable asset. While money comes and goes, time is the one thing we can never get more of. Be intentional with your time – at work and at home – and you will notice how much more you can get out of each day.

When hundreds of mothers were asked on babycenter.com what one thing they wished they had more time for was, the number one answer by a landslide was, “more quality time with my children.”

And if that sounds like something you want too, I’m right with you. We all are constantly being reminded of how “they grow up too fast” and that these years are precious.

If quality time with your kids is a priority for you, make sure that you don’t confuse quality with quantity. It’s easy to confuse the two, when you are a busy mom. Running errands, cleaning the house and making dinner while watching the kids is rarely quality time. Being intentional with how we spend our time for ourselves and with our kids is key.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: FOCUS YOUR TIME

Get in the habit of mapping out not just a to-do list but how much time you want to spend on each activity. Rather than simply crossing out what you’ve completed, you will notice a strong sense of purpose by aligning your time with your priorities.

A quick trick to considering the value of your time is to take your hourly rate and divide it in half. When making a decision to drive across town, return items at a store, or go out of the way for a sale, consider the actual cost – of your time – that it is taking to do that errand. Women who work as freelancers inherently know the value of their time and tend to be more choosy about how they spend it for this reason. But even if you aren’t freelancing, you can start to think about what you could be doing with your time that would be of more value to you than how you are using it.

STOP AND PLAN

Your incentive to using your time more wisely is based in considering the opportunity cost of what you aren’t doing. If you want more quality time with your kids, to build a business for yourself, or to create a better work/life balance that equates to feeling less busy and more at ease, start valuing your time more.

You may even choose to outsource some of your home or work tasks that just aren’t worth you doing them yourself, in trade for more of your own time to live into your big dreams.

“Show me your calendar and I’ll show you your priorities.” – Unknown

Next: Routine for reflection

2 Comments

Ana

November 19, 2016 Reply

Hello Katy,
Great post. I am a “setting goals and planning” person. I am aware of the time I invest or spend, and I am always trying to increase my productivity. I belief these are good habits, and they are part of me. However when something does not go according to my plans my mood changes instantly, I can get really upset and then it is really hard for me to go back to a happy mood. This happens often because I , as all us, share my life with more people around me who can have different ideas, o who cannot be as strict with time as I am. I belief this is a problem many people have as planning and time management can make us control freaks. Has this ever happened to you? Do you have any strategy for a more joyful mood?
Thanks for sharing your content with us!

Kathy

November 23, 2016 Reply

Hi Ana! I know what you mean - the potential downside of setting goals is the inadequate feeling of not meeting them. It's part of why my goal-setting recommendations & planner are so focused on balance and tuning into what the heart is really saying. Too often, we set goals based on one aspect of ourselves (our work agenda, for example) and fail to recognize the other important "goals" in our life. For example, I want to sell a new product, but if I fail to acknowledge the other goals in my life and make room for that as well, such as family time during the holidays, I may find myself either giving up on the product launch or sacrificing too much family time, which may not have truly been what I wanted to do. I believe we need to take a holistic look at what we want, on a monthly (or every few months) basis, and make sure we are putting the time into the areas that matter most, and conversely freeing up our time by not overcommitting in areas that aren't serving us. The Inspired Year Planner I've made really helps us make these kind of holistic goals with balance, and also allows us to reassess our priorities regularly so we don't get stuck serving the wrong priorities or feeling we've misaligned our time with our intentions by creating goals that don't reflect our heart. Your readers (and you maybe too!) would probably really like the planner - I'll link to it here if you want to check it out!

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