Conquering the Creative Work-Life Balance: Simplifying Things

Let the creative work-life balance journey begin! Okay, I have a lot of irons in the fire, and it’s simply time to stop the madness. There’s absolutely no way to successfully juggle everything that I truly have going on right now. So, I’ve decided to FOCUS on the important stuff in order to keep myself in a healthy state of mind, body, and spirit.

I’ve had my theories on the topic of balance and have come to recognize that I’ve had a skewed perspective of what constitutes true priorities and how to carry them out for some time now. And to this day, I’m fully aware that the importance we place on different areas of life are unique to each individual.

So, take the information in this post for what it’s worth to you. This post is meant to serve as informational content to guide you in the manner in which it best suits your needs. And if your needs can’t benefit from it, feel free to toss it out.

Sound like a plan?

So, here’s what I propose. I’m going to top this discussion off by delving into the idea of simplifying things in your life, where you can. The first hint of what I’m going to address was mentioned in a previous post, entitled Creative Entrepreneurship Basics: 3 Tips to Help You Focus on Your Creative Goals.  And although that particular discussion honed in on the “creative” side of self, it can apply to all facets of your life.

In this post, I mentioned that the order of the day is “focusing on the priorities that need finessing” — those priorities being the necessities in life that are going to move you toward life improvement. And doing just that will require you to place attention on the right things in order to propel your efforts (work and personal life) forward.

I’ve determined that I’m simply too old to let overwhelm take over my life and waste time on areas of life that aren’t benefitting me in any way. I just don’t have time to be as wasteful as I’ve been. I have a lot on my plate right now, a lot of scenarios that MUST be tended to, and a lot of scenarios that are on my wish list of items to accomplish. So, time’s a-tickin’, and it’s going to require me to bring a productive “A” game like I’ve never had before.

And that brings me to this creative work-life balance journey that I’m currently on . . . the journey I intend to bring you along (if you’re willing to join me.)

First things first, though. This idea of simplifying areas of your life is necessary. I’m telling you from experience. You can’t do everything well in your life. No one’s wired that way. Even for those GOATs out there who you feel can do no wrong and who have the ability to turn everything they touch to gold, they still have something in life that they haven’t mastered yet. I guarantee it.

I even think of it this way — if we were meant to be exceptional at everything, then there wouldn’t be a need for others to assist us in our life journeys, would there? And since I don’t know of anyone personally who doesn’t need others to help them exist, then I think I’m on the right track with my thinking here.

And if I’m on the right track, knowing that I can’t do everything well, then I think it’s time to FOCUS in on a handful or two handfuls of things that are priorities in life and strive to do them well. Especially those areas that are going to move me closer to my overall goal posts. And all the other things on my list can be attended to with the help of others or at a later date, perhaps.

It’s called simplifying life to decrease the overwhelm to protect the sanity in order to keep you moving forward in your life goals instead of bogged down in an inactive rut because of that overwhelm that was just mentioned. Whew! Didn’t you just feel overwhelmed reading THAT!

Seriously though, we’ve got to find ways to manage all of the competing priorities that are must-dos and want-to-dos in our creative work and personal life arenas. Because as you get older, the balance issue increasingly intensifies as you take on more responsibilities in life.

When you were a young whipper-snapper, you didn’t have the same types of joys of life, demands of life, and pressures of life that adulthood brings about. And so now, you have to take in all of your competing priorities from the lens of adult eyes that bear the full brunt of accountability that children may be able to partially brush off onto the adults in their lives.

Here’s what I decided to do to get my priorities straight. And I’m going to tell you right now that it looks very similar to the goal-setting process that I’ve outlined at Degrees of Maternity in past blog posts. So, humor me if you’ve heard my spiel before.

First, I decided to go to my tried-and-true process of list-making to write down those areas of life I need to focus on. They are broad categories. And for you, that might look like: physical health, mental health, and spiritual health. Or, the categories could take on the form of health and wellness, spirituality, family/social life, career life. Or they could simply be personal life and professional life. Or, they can consist of any other major categories that make up your life components and what you intend to work on in 2022.

Then, I decided to take my broad “life” categories and start listing out the goals I want to accomplish under each of them. And, that’s where I am right now. Although I have notepads of pages of to-dos that I’m constantly writing, I’ve decided that I need a centralized and formal list that reminds me of what I should be focusing on daily/weekly/monthly. This reminder will keep me mindful of what it is I truly want to realistically and successfully accomplish without feeling the weight of overwhelm at trying to do everything and do everything well.

I’ve never been able to do EVERYTHING well yet, and I don’t anticipate on trying to make that happen in this lifetime of mine. But, I can do EVERYTHING possible to be successful at accomplishing those things or functioning in those areas of life that will move me in the direction of life improvement for Jana for the better.

Come join me on this creative work-life balance journey in 2022. You have some starting steps to get you going, and I’ll come back (hopefully, next week), with next steps. Until then . . .