Life is a quest for balance. Different aspects of our life tug at us for attention - our health, career, relationships, kids, money, social lives, spirituality, and self-care. Dealing with these while juggling daily activities is a constant tightrope walk, especially for women. 

 

The sheer number of things to be handled daily makes every day no less than a roller coaster ride. No wonder women resort to multitasking! And yet, at the end of the day, that sense of satisfaction is missing. No matter how much you do, there is always something that isn’t done yet. This pull from different directions, and the unaccomplished activities leaves one with a sense of guilt and low self-esteem. Stress builds up as life goes by, and eventually, it spills over. This stress starts showing up in various aspects of life, eventually degrading the entire experience of life and often leading to burnout.

 

Are there some strategies to avoid this trap? 

 

Yes, there are. And they are quite simple, really. In just 4-steps, you can change your entire experience of life. 

 

Step 1. Create a Life Scorecard

The first step is to really do a quick Life Audit. You need to get a sense of where you are today on the important aspects of life - Health, Wealth, Relationships, Career, Parenting, Social Life, Self-Care, Spirituality. Make a chart and rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 in terms of where you are on that parameter. That’s a great beginning.

 

You’ll find that you aren’t a 10 on most parameters, and that’s fine. You don’t need to be at a 10. What you do need is to have a minimum benchmark for yourself. Now, this benchmark can be different for each parameter. For instance, you want to be at a 7/10 in health at this point. Or you want to be an 8/10 in parenting. At the same time, you might be content with a 3/10 on spirituality. These benchmarks give you focus areas. Mark these benchmarks on the chart as well. You’ll see gaps in where you are as against where you want to be. Remember, you cannot ignore aspects of life that matter. Nor can you always park them for later. If you ignore your health and focus only on your career, all the money earned may be of no use if you don’t have the health to enjoy it, right? The biggest gaps on the chart are where you need to pay attention. 

 

Step 2. Discover your priorities

Now that you know where your gaps are, you need to prioritize your focus. What is most critical to address NOW? Often, we try to address everything all at once, and end up getting overwhelmed.

 

Before you go further, though, the thing that you need to accept is the fact that you are not a superwoman and that life is filled with imperfections. You need to know your priorities, understand your limitations and do the best you can and be peace with that. The mere act of acceptance; that you are doing the best you can, given your circumstances, and that it is good enough is a huge relief in itself. 

 

Step 3. Find time for what matters to you

Once you have a sense of priority, try to create some time for yourself. This is important because a frequent complaint is, ‘Where can I find time’?

 

To find time - you need to do two things:

Minimize waste: Go through your day in detail from the time you wake up to when you get to bed. Find those 10-to-15-minute time wasters that you didn’t even realize existed. For example, post your coffee, you may laze around, or you may reach out for your phone and end up browsing for half an hour. You can find out how much screen time you are averaging using the features on your phone. If you take a close look at it, you will find these hidden time wasters. Once you eliminate them, you can create an hour or more for what you really want to do.

 

Map your energy: Another way to create time is to map our energy levels to the activities we need to do. Research says that if we have complete focus, we could end up completing an activity in half its time. Also, all activities don’t require the same level of focus and energy. For example, coming up with a proposal for something new is best done in your high energy zone while doing regular chores or operational stuff may be best-done post-lunch. Know your peak energy times and use them to do difficult and important things – this will help you do them faster. Lastly, stop multitasking and taking pride in it - our brain structure does not support multitasking in general. In fact, what we do is switch context rapidly when we multitask, and that burns a lot of our mental energy.

 

Step 4. Take affirmative action

Once you have the time and you know what needs your attention the most, have clarity on what you are going to do NOW. Start acting on that through small habit changes, gradually making that habit stick. Once you have successfully instilled a new habit, move on to the next one. 

 

Let’s see how this works. For instance, let’s say that you want to start an exercise routine. Here’s how you could go about it:   

 

 

If you follow this overall strategy, slowly but surely, things will begin to improve. You will feel better about yourself, and the much-needed balance in life will start showing up.