Work-Life Balance 7: Follow-Through on Your Plan

This continues our series exploring how to balance your work-life

You will not achieve balance if you fail to follow-through. Follow-through includes doing what you say will do, protecting the time so that nobody unbalances your life, and knowing when to shift things rather than bombing them.

Do What You Say You Will

You recognize the importance, the integrity, of following through on commitments you make to others. You handle any distraction, interruption, or problem that impose on a meeting with your boss, clients, or other important people in your life.

Yet, how much importance or integrity do you attach to the commitments you make to yourself? You probably feel perfectly comfortable scheduling a meeting or activity on top of one you schedule for yourself. You need to recognize that you deserve as much respect and importance as you give your boss or client.

If you say you will do something for yourself—do it.

Protect Your Time

You need techniques and skills to protect your time. You schedule meetings with your spouse, family or yourself. Then, someone calls and wants that time. What do you do?

Panic if you have not developed the skills to protect the time. Practice some of these techniques:

• Say “I already have an appointment at that time. Could we schedule it for…”
• Describe what you are doing on their side of the balance, ask what they want you to stop doing for this additional piece.
• Negotiate what they will give you in exchange for what you sacrifice for them
• Learn to feel comfortable protecting your balance

Shift Activities Rather than Bomb Them

Frequently, we eliminate the original scheduled event or activity when someone asks for the time. You can maintain balance if you train yourself to shift rather than eliminate activities. For example, if work really does require you to stay late on the night you were taking your wife out to dinner, then shift dinner into a time that business had occupied, make it lunch instead.

Wednesday will explore how to increase your excellence in balancing your work and your life