What’s my Time Worth

By

CMSgt Gary Sparks

We have all had days and/or weeks where we’ve been simply just overwhelmed with all the activities we have going on in our lives. How can we sort those out and keep everything in perspective and get them accomplished without physically or mentally hurting ourselves? Let’s consider a couple of things: figuring out what’s important, and how to weigh and balance what’s important.

When determining what’s important, this can and will mean different things to different people. However, we must recognize what we are passionate about. What do we get excited about? For some, they get excited about going home at the end of the day, where others are excited about going to work. Those that have the excitement about going to work literally love their work. They have great passion for what they do and go home satisfied. We all dislike spending time that we can’t get back, so making the most out of the day is important.

How do we weigh and balance what’s important? According to WebMD, there are five things we can do to strike a work-life balance.

1.     Build downtime into your schedule. With all the activities with kids and other life demands, it’s essential to have time to relax.

2.     Drop energy sapping activities. These are non-productive activities like gossiping or spending too much time on social media. What we consider is how can we better use the time we have.

3.     Rethink errands. Plan your errands the most efficient route to minimize the time spent traveling. This can also tie to over thinking situations. If we over analyze or add complication to what we are doing, then that can and will zap more of our energy. As a general rule of thumb, keep it simple.

4.     Get Moving. Finding time to exercise is really difficult in today’s work environment. However, to maintain our health and wellness, we must find ways to get moving. It doesn’t have to be big, just doing something.

5.     A little relaxation goes a long way. Setting realistic goals goes a long way to helping balancing our work. That plus practicing delegation. In a high-paced environment we work in, we can’t do everything. Building trust among those we work with is a must and many times our words and actions indicate that others may have trust us. ⁱ

By looking at our work-life schedule on a weekly and not a daily basis, we can better manage our days, activities and stressors. In addition, these tips can help in scheduling activities or off-loading tasks to those that can help. It also helps in building continuity for the future.

ⁱ Uscher, Jen, “5 Tips for Better Work-Life Balance,” n.d., WebMD, 5 Aug 12, http://www.webmd.com/balance/guide/5-strategies-for-life-balance