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“Baby steps to four o’clock. Baby steps.. to four o’clock. Baby steps to.. four o’clock.”
Fact: “What About Bob?” is probably one of the most quotable movies I’ve ever seen. “I’m baby stepping. I’m doing the work. I’m not a slacker.”Â
That is pretty much how I feel every single time I am trying to accomplish my list of microtasks and some days, I feel like I’m just not getting anywhere.
All I can do some days is just keep taking baby steps until I’m just ready to quit for the day.Â
This is how it is some days:
In trying to implement a work-life balance, baby steps is the way to go. You’re going to be changing almost every aspect of your life!Â
Remember the book we all read as kids – The Tortoise and the Hare? The moral of that story should pretty much be the mantra we adopt during the process:Â
Changing too much too quick would be a shock to your system, no matter how miserable you currently are in your life, and it’s likely you might not even want to stick with all the positive changes you’ve made.Â
Start Easy
Let’s use sleep as an example.
If you want to get more sleep, don’t go balls out and try to schedule 8 hours to sleep when you are used to 5.
Start with smaller steps. Try an extra half-hour or hour a few days a week, then work up to adding it every day.Â
Basically, you should aim for something small, whatever is easiest to change.
Still using sleep as the example: you might find it’s easier to get more sleep on a weekend night. That’s great!
Start there, then keep going, expanding as you go, until you reach your goal.
To Rearrange or not to Rearrange?
Continuing with sleep as the example:
You could attempt to change your sleep all at once, but you run the risk of having to turn your schedule onto its head.Â
Be realistic and don’t ask too much of yourself at first. If you get up early on Mondays, you might not want to start a new sleep schedule Sunday night. Â
Keeping your desired schedule changes in mind, taking baby steps toward your goal might not even involve a direct change.
It might be solved with some planning or delegating/outsourcing.Â
A little time management might be one of the necessary steps to spreading your work out and creating a schedule that will enable you to work towards your goals.Â
Shift or Delegate
If possible, take some steps to delegate work projects or tasks to others. That will help you limit the amount of hours you spend on work each day.Â
It’s going to take time and effort to finally find your comfortable work-life balance. Don’t try to rush it or you might end up backtracking completely, falling into old patterns.Â
Don’t go dumping all of your work onto someone else. They will definitely notice and probably resent you for it. Talk to your coworkers. They might be up for a project/task swap. You won’t know until you ask.
You will need time to take the steps towards new changes and then adjust to those new changes, so make sure you give yourself some grace in that regard.
Just remember: spreading out your workload will help your processes become more streamlined and things will be a bit easier for you. Yay for that!
resources
The Work-Life Balance Bundle
Struggling to find that work-life balance? Having a hard time shutting down the “work” side of your brain?
I have a bundle for you!Â
- Worksheets
- Journal
- E-book
- Coloring Pages
