PRODUCTIVITY & POSITIVITY
My Personal Guaranteed Work-Life Balance for 2022
Putting Together all the Principles of a Work-Life Balance and Personalizing it for Me.
My last post went all in-depth about the different factors that constitute what I call, the Guaranteed Work-Life Balance. It’s a guarantee because it’s simply a promise to yourself that we will do something about it. We recognize what we’ve been doing for work-life balance has not been working so something needs to change. So, in this post, I’m gonna go personal and write out what my new work-life balance will look like.
RECAP of the Guaranteed Work-Life Balance Principles
But first, a summary of the principles:
- Exercises: As a 40’s male, I need warm-ups and stretching afterwards. Yoga + plyometrics.
- Mental health: Create time blocks in my daily schedule, hold firm to them, but also be ok when it doesn’t always work out.
- Relationships: Be honest about who is adding value to my life and who isn’t.
- Prioritization: Continuously checking what’s actually doable versus telling myself, ‘Johnny, you’re doing too much, chill and be happy with what you did get done.’
- No such thing as the ‘right’ balance. There’s only accommodating the needs of where I am.
RECAP of Where I’m At
From my 2021 year end assessments, this is where I think I’m currently at, physically and mentally:
+ Happy wife, happy life
+ Venture Out quality has been getting better!
+ Risk taking mindset
+ Good adventures
+ Small social dinners and gatherings
+ Running
+ Reading has been a highlight
- Too little social interactions
- Nonstop meetings
- Not tending to my body injuries
- Low on patience, getting stressed, getting down on myself
- No plan for my aging parents
- Spending money on things I didn’t need
My 2022 Priorities
It all starts with a clear vision of what’s important to me. More specifically, what’s important to me as of [insert this posting’s date, haha]. It’s crucial to specify it’s as of this date, because if something big changes tomorrow, then this list of priorities needs to be updated. In other words, it’s not a one-and-done, locked in stone thing. It’s a living document that evolves as my life evolves. But, as of right now…
- Happy wife, happy life!!
- Self-care & Other-care
- Exercising
- Social Interactions
- Venture Out & Professional Career
My new Guaranteed Work-Life Balance
With those priorities, here are the actionable steps I hope to take to create and foster this new, healthy work-life balance for myself. I’m really hoping by doing these things, it’ll help with my overall happiness in the pursuit of that ‘right’ balance for me, for where I’m at in my life.
1. Happy wife, happy life!!
- More picnics exploring new parks, packing some good Indian food and chilling, and evening runs to get an ice cream cookie sandwich!
- Move into our new house!
2. Self-care & Other-care
- Sleep, 7 hrs minimum
- Water, aim for 1 gallon a day
- New meditations — Drop Headspace, try out Insight Timer and Calm.
- What’s the plan for my old parents?
- Books, keep reading!
3. Exercising
- Keep up the running. Logged over 300 miles in 2021, hoping for a repeat this year.
- More warm-up before and more stretching afterwards.
- Add yoga as an essential part of the morning routine.
- Add strength/resistance workouts… need to think about how to incorporate this one
4. Social Interactions
- More small dinners & gatherings. Emphasis on somewhat small because of COVID still.
- Could I text more? We’ll find out!
- Laugh more! Both at home and at work. Had some really great laughs at work in 2021 and let’s see if we can up that. It’s gonna take courage.
- Adventure, cool trips into the outdoors. Maybe a hiking trip? Maybe international?
5. Venture Out & Professional Career
- Less meetings. I’m notorious for tons of meetings, so I do this to myself. Going to do my darndest to limit them.
- More risk-taking.
- More deep work.
- Time-block early morning and longer lunch work-time.
- Send-delay emails to avoid non-work hours.
- Turn off as many notifications as possible on the desktop.
- Take walks during meetings, if possible.
- Again, laugh more!
Final Thought
I’d like to leave you with two quotes. One by what’s been attributed to Einstein most often but is really still unknown who said it first:
“The definition of ‘insanity’ is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
And then one from me:
“The key to a great work-life balance is to have a clear starting point of priorities and then updating them as your needs change.”
Good luck in 2022!
