6 Tips to Achieve Ease and Flow in Your Life

There are so many demands on all of our time that it feels virtually impossible to ever achieve that all-elusive life balance.

To feel like you effortlessly flow from one area of your life to the next, and not feel guilty about any of the individual parts.

Here are my 6 best tips to achieve work-life flow:

1. Realize you only have so many hours in the day

We all only have 24-hour days. Some of us think we’re Superwoman and have more time than that. We don’t. The sooner you realize this, the happier you’ll be.

2. Write down your different roles and the time commitment required from each of them

Don’t forget to add in managing your home and personal time!

The idea is to see if you’re a time optimist or if you’re being realistic with your time. Sometimes we think a certain activity only takes, let’s say, two hours a week. When you factor in travel time plus preparation time, it may increase to four or five hours. No wonder you always feel frazzled when you think about this specific activity.

3. Now ask yourself these questions:

Am I too busy?
Am I trying to do too much?
Am I being realistic about the amount of time outside commitments take?
What do I need or want to focus on at this time in my life?
What can I cut out?
What can I delegate?

4. Prioritize

I do an exercise with my time management clients where they tell me all the different areas of their lives. Some people have lots and lots of balls that they’re trying to juggle. That’s okay (not preferable though) as long as your self-defined priorities are in order.

Don’t neglect your home and family commitments just to look good on a committee.

My preference is to do less overall and do the things I love really well rather than to feel overwhelmed by taking on more and more.

5. Realize that when you say yes to something, you automatically say no to something else.

Some things in life are just for a season, like the newborn stage of having twins. So while reading and going to my dance classes are extremely important to me, I personally did a lot less when my twins were little because I had to sleep whenever I could just to keep the sanity.

6. Keep evaluating and tweaking

Just when you think you have things figured out, suddenly something won’t work anymore.

That’s normal with organizing anything, let alone your time.

Keep evaluating where you’re at – I do this on a weekly basis – and tweak, tweak, tweak. Just because it suited you to work really long hours a few months ago doesn’t mean it still suits you to do so now.

So that’s how I create flow and ease in my life.

I want to emphasize that it’s an area I’m always working on!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marcia Francois is a time management coach and speaker who inspires busy women to break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and take purposeful and focused action so they have the time and freedom to live life to the full. Visit  http://purposefultimemanagement.com  for your free Time Management Purpose Pack.