It’s become a buzzword: sustainability.

Mostly it applies to living life in a way that doesn’t overuse resources. Don’t use trees faster than they can grow. Don’t use more water than is available. The list goes on and on; but it all comes down to the concept of don’t deplete your resources to dangerous levels.

Sustainability In Life

Sustainability practices need to be applied to what we do in life. As I indicated earlier in the week, regular breaks are necessary to sustain productivity. Here are three ways to make sure your life is sustainable:

Rest

We all need rest, yet few of us actually get what we need. Take some time not only to get enough sleep, but also to have some down time each day.

Re-creation

The word recreation can be broken into the two parts Re- and -creation. This is to remind us that we need to take time to recreate ourselves. Take time to play, be creative, sing, dance, or whatever moves you.

Balance

The key to ongoing sustainability is to balance what we are putting out with what we are taking in. I’m not talking about the elusive concept of work-life balance here, but rather making sure that we don’t deplete ourselves too far.

What are your thoughts on sustainability? Share them below.

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A lot of personal development advice seems to revolve around the concept of improving areas of your life that are completely messed up. If you are incredibly disorganized, stressed out, and unhealthy then it makes sense to try to improve these areas.

However, focusing solely on those trouble spots ignores what I think has the greatest potential for amazing progress.

When you’ve started improving those trouble spots in your life, how do you act? If you’re anything like me, chances are you begin to backslide.

I’m in the middle of a training program in preparation for a half-marathon race. I’ve been sticking to the program very well for the past couple weeks and everything is progressing nicely. Instead of redoubling my efforts and staying focused, I realized that I’m letting a very dangerous mindset take over.

Where’s That Killer Instinct?

Let me know if this sounds familiar, “I’ve been running a lot this week so it doesn’t really matter if I eat ice cream for the third day in a row.” Or this: “I’ve been so productive at work recently it doesn’t matter if I let my organizational system fall apart.”

I’m sure you have an area in your own life where you’ve made impressive improvement and, as a consequence, have let something else slide.

My own realization came as I tried to run a 5K training run this morning. This is one of the shortest runs I do and it shouldn’t pose too much of a problem. My running has been going well so I decided to run this distance much faster than I have in the past. That all makes sense, except for the fact that I drank a Coke and ate two doughnuts for breakfast while not drinking any water. In my mind, I figured that since the distance was short and I had been doing so well with longer runs, it didn’t matter that I hadn’t taken care of myself properly.

I was wrong.

The Difference Between Pretty Good and World Class

What sets world-class athletes, CEO’s of huge companies, the best teacher in your school or the most productive person apart from us “mere mortals” is how they approach success. Success is not something they attain once and then lock up in a closet. Success is a never-ending journey that is constantly evolving and growing as they evolve and grow.

If you’ve found yourself stuck on one speed or even regressing in some aspect of your life that is important to you, try one of these tips:

1. Change something, anything, up: Maybe you are beginning to slack because you are bored. You’ve mastered the basics and now it’s time to try something new. Learn some new techniques, change up your training schedule, or find something new and exciting to explore. Much of the time changing things up is exactly what you need to continue your forward progress.
2. Revisit your goals: If your reasons for doing something have become hazy it’s easy to lose the focus you need to do it well. Clarify, in writing, why you are trying to improve some area of your life. Seeing it in front of you in physical form challenges you to take it seriously. Maybe your motivation has changed since starting your endeavor and the real reason you’re stuck in neutral is because it no longer resonates with you. Either way, you have to figure out why you’re doing what you’re doing.
3. 30 Day Challenge yourself where you are slacking: As I’ve improved my running I’ve let my nutrition slack off. It has been easy to justify eating whatever I want when I’m burning so many calories. However, that is not the mindset I want to have if I’m trying to become a much more fit person. Doing a 30 Day Challenge of not eating fast food or eating as cleanly as possible will be a good way to realign my actions with my motivation.

When everything is going well is the time to redouble your efforts and truly do something awesome. Most people settle for average, for mediocrity. You’ve already got the momentum behind you, why not keep it going and really challenge yourself to do more, be more, and live more?

Sam Spurlin writes about simplicity, living consciously, and personal development at The Simpler Life. Come join him on his journey to live as meaningfully as possible!

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My employer has a policy that if we work extra time, we can take a day off every two weeks. Today is my day.

I have purposefully not scheduled anything. I will be sleeping in as this post goes out, and I have made no plans. My task list will remain undone (except for the call to find out if I have to report for jury duty on Monday).

The point of this purposeful idleness is to give myself the time to stop and breathe. The time to dream. The time to be instead of do.

Music is found in the notes and the silence between the notes. There is a reason the spaces between the notes are called “rests”.

Think about it.

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This is an interesting exercise that I ran across a few weeks ago. What would you do if you quit your job?

The point here is not to actually do it, but to think about how your life would change if you did.

Would you:

• Cut back on expenses?
• Give up a car?
• Move?

What would you do with your time? Would you:

• Start a business?
• Learn a skill?
• Travel?

Think about it. You might be surprised at your answers.

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How many times in the last few years have you heard or said those words? When we were growing up, it was a rare thing for most of us to skip family mealtime; in fact, it was so unusual, we knew from an early age that there had to be pretty extenuating circumstances for anyone to miss it. But if you’re like most people nowadays, you eat more dinners apart than together. And that’s not good.

Research has shown time and again that families that share dinnertime experience numerous benefits, including having kids who do better in school and are less likely to do drugs, smoke, drink, or get depressed. With all those positives and no negatives (except maybe having to listen to your spouse’s lame jokes AGAIN), why don’t we spend more time eating dinner together?

It’s simple: Time. We lead such busy lives – full of work, activities, school, and more – that most days we’re lucky if we get to eat dinner at all, much less share a meal with the entire family. Coordinating four or five (or more) schedules, shopping for groceries, planning the meal, and taking the time to actually cook it are, on some days, more than we can accomplish.

But it’s worth working toward, and there are some simple tools that can help us reach our goal. The key is, as in most other endeavors, good planning. We all know how well things go when we plan them out, and how poorly they go when we don’t. Here are some ideas to help you increase the number of meals you eat together:

Get some help. There are plenty of tools, both online and off-, that you can use to make family mealtime happen. A simple search on Google can provide you with numerous ways to make grocery shopping, meal planning, and cooking easier – even for families with very tight schedules.

Schedule, schedule, schedule. Schedule time for meal planning, shopping, cooking, and the meal itself. Share calendars with the other grownups and teenagers in the house; after all, if it’s not on the calendar it probably won’t happen.

Make the time. This is probably the hardest part, but like any other endeavor, you need to work on it if you want success. Unless you devote the time and energy to making this happen, it’s probably a guarantee that it won’t. Commit to creating this time for your family. After all, the most important benefit of family dinners is more time to connect with your family – and that’s something we all benefit from.

Have you tried to plan more family dinners? What tools do you use to make it happen? We’d love to hear about it in the comments!

Trish Smith brings you information each week that can help you make better food choices – from how to find locally-produced food, to how to prepare that food in a way that’s easy, simple, tasty, and healthy.

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Managing our energy is one task that working parents face daily. Given the demands on us from both the office and home, we can quickly become drained. An old article over at Lifehack.Org, The 7 Energy Sinkholes And How To Avoid Them, gives a good overview of what they are. I thought I would expand on these for working people.

The 7 Sinkholes

1. Disorganization
2. Poor Diet and Lack of Exercise
3. Problem Contacts
4. Focusing on Your Weaknesses
5. Squeaky Hinges
6. Blog/E-Mail/Facebook Addiction
7. Pleasing People

How These Sinkholes Impact Working Parents, And What To Do About Them

Disorganization

It’s hard enough to cope with the disorganization of one person, but throw in the stress of having to locate items for children and spouses, and this can be a major drain. There is only one way to get past this: declutter (see Clutter 101: How To Start Decluttering) then organize (see Organizing 101: Where to Start). This means get rid of the excess, then find a place for everything else. Organization boils down to keeping everything in its designated places.

We can help train our children to do this by having designated areas for their stuff. In our house, backpacks go by the door in the kitchen. Any backpack not left there will be removed. The rule in our house is that if the backpack is dropped somewhere else, I will throw it either into the yard or on the front porch. I’ve only had to do this once.

We also have a Saturday Basket. Worn out with telling my daughter to pick up toys, I hit upon this idea: I make a quick sweep through the house every evening and things that are not put away are put in a laundry basket stored on a shelf. On Saturdays she has to put all these toys away; if a toy ends up repeatedly in the basket, it quietly goes away. I no longer have to yell about picking up, and I am not working around disorganized playthings.

Poor Diet and Lack of Exercise

This is a hard one for working parents. We have little enough time as it is, and the thought of adding one more thing onto the list can be daunting. I won’t lecture you about the importance of diet and exercise. We all know it. What we need is practical suggestions on how to make it happen.

I don’t have a problem eating healthy for breakfast or dinner, the meals I eat at home. My problem is lunch. My solution to this is to take leftovers from the night before as my lunch. I get the benefit of the healthy meal, without the additional effort of having to prepare a separate meal.

For exercise, I believe it is best to work it in wherever possible. Sure, we may not be able to get to the gym or exercise class three times a week; however, getting your body going some is better than not at all. I work extra effort in by moving a little faster while I am cleaning house, walking the dog as often as possible, and walking at lunch if the weather permits.

Problem Contacts

Unfortunately, problem people are not easy to get rid of. Those that aren’t related to us could be jettisoned. However, for the sake of familial peace, we cannot simply refuse contact with draining relatives or in-laws. My solution: limit your exposure. If your sister calls up to complain about the latest crisis in her life, ring your own doorbell and get off the phone. If your mother-in-law is nitpicking during a visit, get a sudden “emergency” phone call from work. Whatever it takes to preserve your energy from vampires.

Focusing on Your Weaknesses

So many working parents second guess themselves, mostly because of the pulls on our attention and time. With the second-guessing comes a sense that we may not be doing as well as we could. This sort of negative thinking, focusing on the things we think we could have done better if we had more (fill in the blank: energy, time, money…), can lead to a mental fatigue. Instead, focus on what you do well.

Squeaky Hinges

The article defined a squeaky hinge as a piece of technology that doesn’t work optimally. This one caught my attention as I used to deal with a dishwasher that didn’t quite clean, and made horrible noises. With any sub-functioning equipment, we need to get it fixed or replaced as quickly as possible. The amount of subconscious attention you will be given to the broken item will be eliminated, and you will wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.

Blog/E-Mail/Facebook Addiction

Technology is great. However, as working parents, we don’t have unlimited time to read email, cruise the internet or read blogs. Do we want our children to remember their parents at the computer, or playing with them? The sad truth is that 90% of what comes over the computer at home is not essential. (If you don’t believe me, go for a week without accessing email, and see how much you truly miss). Limit your computer time, with a timer if necessary, and use the delete key liberally. Better yet, filter your email to get the jokes and advertisements right into the trash.

Pleasing People

As working parents, we want to give our best to everyone. However, if we take it too far and do things for others at the expense of time we need to rejuvenate ourselves, we will burn out. The way to avoid this is to make sure you keep your needs met as much as possible. As a friend of mine says, “If mama isn’t happy, nobody is happy.”

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When I was first studying music, one teacher told me that music was what happened in the spaces between the notes. This thought changed the way I looked at the music, giving the spaces as much importance as the notes themselves.

Life is also like this: we need to give as much weight to the spaces between activities as we do the activities.

We face burnout daily. It is so tempting to keep on going forward with our never-ending to-do lists, never taking the breaks to give meaning to our tasks.

One important concept in getting to a more peaceful state is to slow down and allow those periods of space to occur. Here are some ways to accomplish this:

Creating Space At Work

Instead of immediately plunging headlong into a new task after completing one, take ten seconds to close your eyes and breathe, focusing on what you have just accomplished. This will give you a better sense of completion, plus allow you to recall what exactly you did during the day.

Creating Space At Home

Limit your to-do list. Choose what you will accomplish at home, and do no more. Take the extra time to either have time with yourself, play with the kids, or talk to your spouse. Use this time to give meaning to your usual pace of work.

Creating Space on Weekends

If at all possible, get away from the to-do list. Instead of spending the weekends cleaning, see if you can do it during the week; use the freed-up time to have fun with your family.

All of these ideas are just starters to get you moving in the direction of creating space in your life. What are your favorite methods?

Photo by Tal Bright

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It’s been an interesting few weeks. My manager took another position in the company. The first word is that they were not going to fill the position. The next day they posted the job announcement.

I work for a small division of a larger company. There are three of us programmers that support the division, insulated (along with the rest of the developers) from the main offices in another state.

I know this business. There are four of us in the company that understand the products. I’ve worked with the products and the teams the longest of all.

I am also part time, by choice.

I decided to throw my hat in the ring. After all, if they were willing to take me as a part-timer, why not? The position has significantly higher visibility, more responsibility, and better pay.

So I went through the process, shadowing my boss. I sat in on the interminable phone calls, released code, processed requests. And today I had my interview.

The VP interviewing me said that I was hands-down qualified, well-respected in the organization, and more than capable of doing the job. Then she asked me if I was sure I was going to be able to do what was required, because it was currently being done by a more-than-part-time person.

The position, first-line support, requires after-hours and weekend work. Sometimes a lot of it.

By the time I walked out of the interview, I knew my answer.

NO.

I went part time so that my daughter would not have to do before- and after- school care. So that we could do things like Brownies and piano lessons. I use my extra time to relax. I write. I garden. I do my housework during the week.

I like what I do during the day: I like moving mass amounts of data effortlessly and coming up with clever solutions to sticky problems. And I like leaving that behind me at the end of the day.

And I realized I didn’t want to give any of that up.

So am I crazy? Some people would think so.

I don’t believe I am. I feel good about this decision. It’s a matter of putting my life design first.

Photo by jaxxon

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Balance

Webster’s defined balance as “a state of equilibrium between contrasting, opposing, or interacting elements”. Equilibrium is a reactive thing. As a force pushes, it adjusts.

When people talk about life-work balance, they inevitably talk about amounts of time designated to certain areas of their lives. If they draw it out, it will take the shape of a pie, with slices allocated to sleep, work and family.

Stasis

Balance is not about stasis. If you were to remain fixed and static, and a force pushed against you, you would fall over.

Why, therefore, do we try for fixed proportions when we talk about life-work balance?

Small Corrections from a Good Starting Place

Let’s take a look at a unicycle rider. The person must first get up on the cycle, initially balance, and then you will see him adjusting the cycle with his torso and the pedals.

Without that initial balance, the cycle rider will fall. Without the adjustments, gravity will take over.

Just as a rider on a unicycle must adjust himself to stay upright in the same general location, we also must learn to move from an initial starting position and adjust ourselves in small ways if we are going to remain in balance.

Balancing Life

In order to get a good life-work balance, you need to start in a sustainable position. Look at your pie chart of activities as they are now. Is there anything that can be changed? Is there anything that could be changed? If you are working 80 hours a week and have no down time, it may be time to adjust your job. If you have a large chunk of time labeled “television” or “internet” it may be necessary to cut back on those to get that initial balance.

Once you have your initial balance, work on small adjustments. If you are toiling hard one week on a work project, make sure to adjust the next week and take some time to do something else.

And remember, it is never too late to get off the cycle and restart.

Photo by Karl Horton

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I am a fan of Robert Fulghum (Books by Robert Fulgham), and his blog is one that usually has me thinking, and often chuckling. A few weeks ago he posted an article, “Reflection at Winter Solstice”, with the “Mother Questions” (sorry, the article is no longer available on his site – he doesn’t seem to keep archives more than a month). These questions made me stop and think, because I have said them as a mother. But as an adult, they take on another set of meanings.

The Mother Questions

What on earth have you done?

• Mother’s take: My mother used to say this to me when I screwed something up royally.
• Adult take: What have you done on the earth? Have you been a good steward? Are you working for those who live on the planet? What are your accomplishments?

What in the name of God are you doing?

• Mother’s take: This one was issued when my mother caught me doing something…usually before I managed to destroy or injure something. I believe the thought was that invoking deity would stop me in my tracks.
• Adult take: What are you doing for the higher good? Are you practicing what you believe?

What will you think of next?

• Mother’s take: This was issued after I had a crazy out-of-the-box idea. I believe the thought was to bring me back into conformity, so I wouldn’t stick out. It was also used after doing something off-the-wall (see the two points above).
• Adult take: What is your next big idea? Where are you going? What are you learning? What are your plans?

Who do you think you are?

• Mother’s take: My mother used this one to make sure I didn’t get too big-headed. Keeping my place was a good idea, in her mind, because those who rose above their place were often the target of jealousy.
• Adult take: Who are you, deep inside? How do you define yourself? What words do you use to describe yourself? What are your beliefs, your emotions and your thoughts?

These questions really made me stop and think about where I am.

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