Whatever happened to work-life balance? It’s always: Go! Go! Harder! Faster! And yet it never seems to be enough. Never enough effort, never enough time.

I was just in Toronto presenting at the Health, Work & Wellness Conference (the theme was aptly titled “Conquer the Chaos“). During the conference, Deborah Conners, conference president stated, “distracted, unfocused, and unproductive employees will not provide the creativity, innovation, and loyalty organizations will need to get ahead and stay there.”

She mentions how we are trapped by the ‘electronic leashes’ of technology. Initially it was given to us as a godsend, but it has quickly become a nightmare. You know someone (maybe you?) who is connected to their email 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. These same people sit on the bench at their children’s sports games doing business on their smartphones. They need to re-balance their work-life balance.

Some Data on Work-Life Balance

According to an Office Deport Organization Study, Nov 2006:

• 53% live in ‘controlled chaos’
• 76% report losing time to disorder
• 51% concerned about missing important deadlines or appointments
• 16% cite fear of diminishing their reputation
• 14% lose business opportunities due to disorganization
• 61% claim the biggest frustration with their disorganized environment is that they can’t find what they need quickly
• 27% find it hard to concentrate with messy files around

Many of you are nodding your head, commiserating with these facts. Yet, only 22% actually spend the time to arrange their desks for maximum productivity every day. Only 49% of you organize on a monthly basis, if not less. More interesting, is that 67% are not sure how to start or maintain their efforts.

The top three things that you can do for yourself to start the shift back to work-life balance is to:

• Take back your time by starting 15 minutes per day
• Ask for assistance. You can not do it all – nor should you. Consider leveraging your routine administrative tasks to a virtual assistant (or student volunteer).
• Do not make yourself available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is up to you to educate your clients and colleagues and set your precedent. Turn off your cell phone & email after hours. If you respect your time, others will as well.

If you need some help restoring your work-life balance, contact Linda at Out of Chaos.