by Nancy F. Clark (Follow her on Twitter)
Named one of Forbes: Thirty Women Entrepreneurs To Follow On Twitter

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Balancing all aspects of your life is not about running harder and faster. It’s about realizing the following:

• There’s only a limited amount of time each day when you’re awake and functioning.
• It’s not good to concentrate on only one thing, such as work–you’d be neglecting family and friends.
• Perfection is not always good, and is often a waste of time.
• And, there are a number of areas where your attention is needed.

So what are the areas I need to consider when I’m trying to balance my life? It’s a big list. Here are the 8 that are on my list: Family, Friends, Work, Health, Spirituality, Giving Back, Being Selfish, and then there’s Trajectory—which I’ll explain in a minute.

First on my list is Family. I’m a proponent of “When you’re with your family, give them your full attention.” This means no Blackberry on the beach. I know you might consider multitasking a plus, but give it another review and see if you change your mind.

Friends. Schedule get-togethers and phone calls.

Work. Do the most important things on your list each day. Don’t allow guilt over the undone tasks to consume you. Instead, delegate what you can, and then forgive yourself for not having more than 24 hours in a day.

Health. You know what you need to do: Eat better foods, don’t skip meals, exercise, take vitamins, see a doctor and a dentist on a regular schedule—see that’s a simple list. If you’re overweight, you need to change your habits and your choices.

Spirituality. This may be religion for some of you. Do you have a philosophy of life? Does life have meaning for you as part of something larger than you? Work this into your balance of life schedule.

Giving Back. This is my personal add-on: Make the world a little bit better than it would have been without you. It may be by raising a child who is good to others. It may be by tending to an unsightly median strip in your neighborhood. It may be by contributing $25 to a micro-loan program. It’s why I started the website www.WomensMedia.com with 2 friends to help working women succeed.

Being Selfish. Aha, now who could object to that? Time for yourself is a must on your list. Schedule it onto your calendar. Look forward to that time when you look over your plans for the day and the week.

Trajectory. Here’s the one I need to explain. This is similar to a New Year’s resolution for your life’s direction. You get to steer yourself toward goals for family, friends, work, spirituality, giving back, and just being selfish. My Business Tip of the Week deals with this.

And here it is.

Business Tip of the Week:

You only have to make 1 decision . . . BUT, you have to make it right now! You have to decide how often you’ll think about your trajectory—I mean, how your life is going. Once a year is not often enough, come on, you agree with that. Decide how often you want to look over those 8 aspects of your life to see if you’re staying on the road you’ve envisioned for yourself. Sometimes unexpected situations or opportunities occur which alert you to the need to redirect your “drive.”  I’ve made my decision. I’ve decided that when I see it’s the first day of a month, I’ll pull out my list and quietly look over each aspect and see if I’m falling behind in one, or if my overall direction needs a correction. This shouldn’t make me feel bad. It should make me feel that I’m keeping up with my goal of a mini-correction on the first of every month. How about that? One more thing to feel good about!

Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

Sign up for the WomensMedia Newsletter. We make it easy!

Website, WomensMedia, by Madeleine Holman, The Problem of Balance —Boundaries Will Help You

Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Nancy Clark, 5 Steps You Must Do Now to Manage Your To-Do List —For Time Management Keep Your Priorities In Mind or listen to it here.

Website, WomensMedia, by Debra Pestrak., How to Balance Your Career and Your Family —So Both are Rewarding and Enjoyable

(Listen to it here.)

Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

Balancing all aspects of your life is not about running harder and faster. It’s about realizing the following:

• There’s only a limited amount of time each day when you’re awake and functioning.
• It’s not good to concentrate on only one thing, such as work–you’d be neglecting family and friends.
• Perfection is not always good, and is often a waste of time.
• And, there are a number of areas where your attention is needed.

So what are the areas I need to consider when I’m trying to balance my life? It’s a big list. Here are the 8 that are on my list: Family, Friends, Work, Health, Spirituality, Giving Back, Being Selfish, and then there’s Trajectory—which I’ll explain in a minute.

(Listen to it here.)

Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

First, admit that you are indeed procrastinating on a task or project.

Get out your To Do List. Take a look at each item and ask yourself, “Am I procrastinating on this? Maybe just a little bit?” If so, put a “P” in front of it and go to the next item. Now, look at your list. Do you have a “P” in front of items that should be of high priority? That’s bad, admit it. Don’t beat yourself up too much. You’re beginning a reframing process and you’ll be better after you put into action my Tip of the Week.

(Listen to it here.)

Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

There’s one word I’m not going to use, because I’ll lose most of you at the start. Well, I guess I have to give you a hint: This is not about meditation. This is about something that Jon Kabat-Zinn, a stress management medical doctor and author, calls mindfulness.

What would you like? Would you like to reduce your commitments, succeed with time management, or just reduce stress immediately? If “all of the above” is your answer, then you need to listen to my quick tip.

If stress bombards you too long and too hard, you end up in a hospital, and that’s not where you want to be. Listen to my one minute solution to reducing stress.

(Listen to it here.)

Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

In my blog posting, Work-Life Balance —Creating Boundaries For You To Follow, I talked about the priorities you have in your career and your personal life and the boundaries that you will follow. Today I’ll discuss the boundaries you can put in place for your fellow workers to follow. Now, won’t that be nice!

(Listen to it here.)

Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

In the US there are two weekly shows competing for the popular television audience: Cashmere Mafia and Lipstick Jungle. They have a bit of something for everyone—which is what, I guess, is needed to catch people’s attention in the television market. They also have something in common—they both show executives who are women—women who can take charge.

“Men are changing when women are negotiating the second shift.”

—Nancy Clark

(Listen to it here.)

Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

Richard Mbuthia says, “Housework, in all honesty, is believed by most husbands (read men) to be the sole responsibility of women. To many men, there is no doubt who should do all the housework, even daunting chores, come rain come shine–woman.”

When a woman comes home after a hard day at work, helping to support the family, she doesn’t have an excess of energy that’s necessary to work a second shift of housework, and possibly childcare as well. Check out my choice of solutions.

(Listen to it here.)

Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

Is your job or your business eating away at your Other Time? That Other Time is every bit as important as work time. It’s true. It’s just tough keeping this idea from slipping into the background noise of work and more work.

(Listen to it here.)

Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

Making choices and enjoying those choices—that’s a scenario that worth aiming for! Let’s learn how we can achieve that by breaking the process down into steps.