For many people, breaking away from the gravitational pull of work is extremely difficult. In fact, for the high-achievers among us, it may seem down right counterintuitive. In pursuit of work-place success, our personal lives are usually the first thing we sacrifice. But this puts us in a precarious position — when our work/life balance is off, our performance suffers, along with our happiness and motivation. We end up feeling overworked, exhausted, and depleted. And overtime, we begin to lose sight of the very reason we became so invested in our work in the first place. In order to truly “make it,” mastering your work/life balance is not just a nice-to-have, but a necessity.
When Life Throws You Curveballs
Parents are constantly juggling responsibilities: work, household logistics, personal and professional relationships, loving and raising the kids, all while trying to find time for self-care, exercise, hobbies, and a little shut eye. On a good day, managing this juggling act is a delicate balance. What happens when life throws you a massive curveball?
The #1 Time Management Question to Ask Yourself
Open up your current to-do list and take a look at it. How many of your tasks have a time estimate next to them? If you are like the majority of people, probably none. When writing out to-do lists, most of us only ask ourselves one question — what do I need to do? — and not how long will I need to do it? Yet, the difference between good and bad time managers pivots on the asking of this critical question…
Working Well With Others (When You're Working From Home)
It’s one thing to learn how to productively work-from-home as an individual, but; collaborating with others in a remote workforce is an entirely different challenge. Not only must we learn to stay in sync with remote colleagues — many of whom may be operating under different hours, work-loads, or circumstances than ourselves — the vast majority of us must also learn to navigate working from home alongside our roommates, partners, parents and children — which presents another unique challenge. While some of our pre-existing systems can be applied to our new working conditions, it is also necessary to develop new and specific protocols to ensure that we can work with others — both within and outside of our households — in a productive, collaborative, and harmonious manner.
5 Ways To Be Productive When Working From Home
For many years, the business world has been wrestling with the logistics surrounding the adoption of remote work and implementation of flexible work hours. Never did we foresee that a global pandemic would have us scrambling to uncover the answers to these questions, practically overnight. Without a clear roadmap to follow, many companies, individuals, and teams are struggling to navigate this dramatic change in circumstances. Daunting as the task at hand may be, the present situation provides a unique opportunity to find solutions to these age-old challenges. The key lies in creating functional systems and establishing a clear structure to your work week that facilitates productivity, while putting guard rails in place to protect your personal time and space.
How to Manage a Remote Team
In the old days, when leaders got involved with how their people worked, they were deemed micro-managers — the worst name in the book. But today, being an involved leader is essential to harnessing talent, particularly when managing a remote workforce. Lack of visibility can cause anxiety and uncertainty — for both managers and their direct reports — leading to over-work, wasted time, and missed opportunities. With less face-time, leaders must take a more active role in structuring the way their teams work.
What’re You Doing For Fun? (Yes, Really!)
Our hobbies, our passions, and what we do for pure relaxation fuel and restore us physically, emotionally, and psychologically in the most efficient way imaginable. Those restorative activities provide care and nurturance for your soul — providing you with the energy you need to get through everything life throws at you. And yet, in our parent time survey, a whopping 84.5% of parents said they spend too little time on hobbies and personal relaxation. Let’s change that!
Automate The Predictable
Raising kids is all about the unpredictable: juggling responsibilities at work and in your personal life with constant shifts in your child’s mood, interests, abilities, and needs. If you leave the predictable activities — like cleaning, laundry, meal prep, and cooking — to the burden of daily decision-making, you won’t have the energy and time to deal with the true surprises, like the post-dinner temper-tantrum. When it comes to logistics — the stuff that has to get done to keep yourself, the kids, and the household running — the goal is to automate the predictable, while shrinking each system to its smallest footprint.
Networking (In Half The Time)
Networking is vital to a successful career in almost any field. Without the time and ability to engage in networking at the same level as their non-parent peers, working parents need to get creative and develop concrete strategies for cultivating professional relationships. If you’re struggling to find the time, try systematizing your approach so that it becomes a seamless part of your routine without stealing precious hours from your day with these easy strategies.
Does Technology Bring Us Closer Together Or Further Apart?
With great power, comes great responsibility. Twenty years ago, we may not have imagined a world in which every person could hold great power in the palm of their hand. And then came the smartphone… providing us with a whole lot of power, and a responsibility we may not have been prepared to accept. Ultimately, our devices have the power to allow us to connect or disconnect at will. And it’s up to us to decide how we use technology in our everyday lives — whether we allow it to lift or limit the quality of our social interactions.