Relationships, Health, Work, Money: Achieving Life Balance

According to productivity expert Stephen Covey, “The challenge of work-life balance is without question one of the most significant struggles faced by modern man.” But it’s actually even harder than that because there’s a lot more to achieving life balance than calibrating home and work activities. You also have to balance time and energy spent on relationships, finances, health, professional development, hobbies and giving back to others — if you’re so inclined. .

In order to achieve balance, you need to determine what exactly needs balancing to begin with. And defining the meaningful categories — or branches — of your life can help.

Categorization promotes greater information-processing efficiency — our ability to categorize is innate. Even infants as young as three months old have demonstrated the ability to categorize dogs and cats as distinct from birds in tests of attention and habituation. Categories allows us to more easily able to sort through the “noise” in our environment and pay attention to what’s most important.

Organizing your productivity efforts around your branches not only lays the groundwork for creating balance, but helps harness focus — one of your greatest productivity powers. Focus determines direction and concentrates energy. It lets you bring your best self to whatever you do and is the first step to overcoming any challenge. Whether you want to earn a promotion, learn how to play the guitar or be a better parent, it all starts with focus — focused attention, focused thought, focused effort and focused action.

When decluttering, the first step is to sort all your stuff into piles of similar items so you can direct your attention and concentrate on one category of things at a time. Books go here, clothing here, craft items here, etc. — “divide and conquer” as the saying goes. Categorization makes it far easier to make decisions about what to keep and what to let go .

But what are the branches of your life? Consider what’s most important to you at your core? Is it family? Writing or painting? Improving your personal finances? Working toward saving the planet? Reflecting on what matters most to you can help you identify your own core areas of focus.

Branches Productivity provides an organizational framework for all your tasks, projects and goals. There’s simply no substitute for regular care and attention to all the significant parts of your life in order to to achieve and maintain balance — whether it’s your health, your finances, your kids or your job. Branches encourages the regular review of progress in each of your branches and make adjustments as needed to better optimize each area of your life.

Organizing  tasks, projects and goals into meaningful categories is the first step. Branches Productivity is a holistic, value-driven personal productivity system designed to help you identify and get the most important things on your to do list done by maintaining regular focus on all the important branches of your life. It also help you derive greater meaning and satisfaction from everyday activities and helps keep daily actions in greater alignment with values.

Learn more about how Branches Productivity, whether you’re just starting on the path toward your goals or looking to take productivity and performance to the next level, by downloading the guide, which is free for a limited time.

Source

https://www.forbes.com/2007/03/19/covey-work-life-lead-careers-worklife07-cz_sc_0319covey.html