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Balance and Time Management – Is There a Difference?

🕑 4 minutes read | Sep 08 2022 | By Sherron Barnhill, TTA Learning Consultant
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Balance and time management are often terms that are used interchangeably as if they are the same thing. It is very easy to assume that they are, however, time management serves more as the bulldozer that creates space and opportunity to get rid of everything that disrupts the balance in your life.

Over the years, I have heard many clients express that due to the demands of life, family, work, etc., there isn’t enough time for them to start a business, invest in themselves, or cultivate relationships and partnerships with individuals of like minds.

As a result, it has caused them to experience a lack of ease and a constant struggle trying to balance their current load with the lingering desire to accomplish more, create more efficient and wholesome avenues of providing for themselves and their families and pursue their dreams.

What is Balance?

Balance is a state of being. Being balanced ensures that a person’s internal scale doesn’t move too far in one direction, resulting in either exhaustion and burnout or unproductivity. So, what controls this scale? The mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual components of a person’s life. When any one of these components is depleted or compromised, it will be evident in one’s actions and level of performance. Each of these components of life requires time and attention.

A state of balance helps a person remain stable even in the midst of unforeseen changes in their external circumstances. If you find yourself in compromising situations such as: being overly agitated, aggravated, frustrated, exhausted, or anxious with the inability to perform well in any capacity, it may be safe to say the scale has erroneously tilted too much in one direction. When this happens, it causes you, as a person, to feel imbalanced. Here is where time management could be used as a tool to help balance the scale to achieve your most optimal state. The fruits produced from balance are evident and result in a more rested, peaceful state of being, followed by pleasant actions, outcomes, and optimal performance.

What is Time Management?

Time management provides the strategy to steward time properly to acquire the balance needed in your life. It helps you to put time into perspective and weed out distractions that rob you of your time, energy, and effort.

Time management, when employed correctly, introduces you to a harmonious and balanced life that enables you to give a sufficient amount of attention to your mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual components, as well as to your family, your work, or your hobbies, etc.

When you sit down with your planner, your life (everything that involves you), and the amount of time that has been entrusted to you each day, you will find that as you narrow down and assess your priorities, tasks, and daily activities, having a balanced life is within your reach. It is not an impossible thing, but it is a necessary thing for you to search out what is most important so that you can have the life, business/work, and success you most desire.

Equal time is not necessarily balanced time. Keep this in mind as you reevaluate and reassess your current life priorities and to-dos.

8 Steps to Regain Balance in Your Life

To end this blog post, I would like to leave you with some action steps to take if you feel that your life may be out of balance.

  • Step #1: Write down all of the different areas or categories in your life. Ex: Family, business/work, self-care, hobbies, etc.
  • Step #2: List the activities that you do on a routine basis in each category.
  • Step #3: Determine the amount of time and space that is sufficient for you to tend to every area of your life optimally.
  • Step #4: Examine things that are taking up most of your time unnecessarily, and evaluate whether or not time spent engaging in these activities is profitable or not.
  • Step #5: Allow time management to be the bulldozer that creates the space for the things that are most important in your life and clear out the things that aren’t.
  • Step #6: Invest in a good Life & Business Planner!
  • Step #7: Make planning a priority in your life. Employing the strategy of time management will enable you to acquire the needed balance in your life.
  • Step #8: Be vigilant! As long as we’re striving to make progress in Life & Business, we can expect the unexpected – so don’t be afraid to reevaluate, readjust, reprioritize and repurpose certain life categories and activities as the times and seasons of your life change.

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