Want to Feel Better? Live Life with Numbers

The Simple Awareness of Re-balancing Your Priorities

Do you wake up some days and feel like something is completely out of whack?

You aren't quite sure, but you know that there isn't the balance you need.

Most people think of this as binary, the famous work / life balance. This ends up being unfair because it does two things. First it makes people think in terms of work vs all other. Second, it does not give enough visibility to other area in the "life" bucket.

Bill Burnett and Dave Evans do a great job in their book "Designing Your Life" expanding on this concept. They break the traditional work / life balance argument into four categories: work, play, love, health.

Another important element in their view is how we see work.

Don’t for a minute reduce work only to that which you get paid for. Most people have more than one form of work at a time.

One suggestion I have for you, would be to expand the love category and think of it as relationships in general. We are social animals, while love is important for us, so to is our need for the extended relationships we have within our communities.

How does this help you?

By taking stock of what your current scoreboard looks like, you will see where you are spending your time and energy and the context of each of those buckets to the other.

If you are feeling out of balance, odds are that one of your buckets (most likely work) will be out of proportion to the others.

This gives you the opportunity to change plans, shift your priorities to start speaking to those areas that you are neglecting.

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