Balance Yourself"The clock still counts off 24 hours every day. The calendar still tracks us through 7 days each week, 52 times a year. But our annual 365 days feel different now, because they're being fragmented. We live our lives now in smaller pieces of time. And we're still trying to figure out how to deal with this chopped up existence. We feel less grounded. More unsteady.There's also the accelerating pace of change to consider. As our world speeds up, time seems to shrink. We're caught up in this 'age of instancy' - we even help feed the frenzy - and that adds to the feeling of stress.A third reason we feel unbalanced is because we're victims of option overload. Most of us are guilty of cramming our lives too full of things that take more from us than they give. We struggle under the 'burden of choice,' as over-stimulation makes it too easy for us to over-consume. To over-commit. We pile our plates too high as we move through the cafeteria line of choices of things to do. But much of this food fails to satisfy. Life ends up being too full. We over-indulge, and our punishment is a more pressured existence.Along with our fragmented, faster, too full lives, we find that our work time and personal time are blurring together. Technology makes this possible. As the workforce gets wired, work follows us home and home goes to the office. In face, with a pager on our belt, a cell phone in our purse or pocket, and a laptop computer in the car or on the plane, work can easily be with us all of our waking hours. Voicemail, emails, faxes, and overnight express packages pursue us any place we go.For many of us work is no longer an 8 to 5, five days a week routine. It's 24-7-365: round the clock, all year long. We even take it on vacation.TO FIGHT FRAGMENTATION OF OUR DAYS AND WORK WEEKS, we can start with this guideline: Start less...finish more.We need to learn how to say no...mainly to ourselves. Instead of overdosing on all the choices and options we have to pick from in terms of how we spend our time, let's single out those things we truly need and want to do. Let's quit cluttering our lives with stuff that doesn't count for much. In a world that confronts us with this much complexity, we must seek simplicity.Another approach that holds promise for helping us balance ourselves is to get serious about habit-breaking. We need to bust out of some of our harried routines. For example, many of us are guilty of too much 'thought shifting.' We bounce from one thing to the next without focusing on a problem, worry, or task long enough to complete it or reach resolution. We ricochet around like a pinball...accomplishing little...coming back again and again to glance off the same old issues. Flooded with stimuli, we over-respond. This keeps us busy, but it doesn't bring meaningful results. We're better off if we take the larger chunks of time needed to genuinely deal with things. The idea is to pin problems to the mat. To truly handle the, instead of being distracted and having them come back later to plague us again.Finally, understand that we need to handle ourselves caringly. Accept the fact that there are limits to what we can give and do. To what we can have. Or be. Or enjoy. Now granted, all of us will have an occasional period of imbalance in our lives. That's okay. But we're not taking care of ourselves - or our organizations - when we allow imbalance to become a chronic condition describing our lifestyle.So set some limits. And do something you want to do - daily. Some thing you can enjoy. Let it refresh your mind, recharge your spirit, and prepare you to deal more effectively with tomorrow (Pritchett, 1999, pp.38-39)."Reference: Pritchett, P. (1999). New work habits for the next millenium. Pritchett and Associates.

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