1. Shift from Not Valuing to Valuing your Time. 

This is an important change to make and when it happens you will never waste another minute! In a dollar sense - this means you are comfortable charging for your lifetime of knowledge, learning and experience - don't allow clients to take this for granted. You have invested a lot of time and energy and in life, we only get one chance with our time - we cannot go back and use the last 10 seconds!

2. Get the most out of your day.

Every now and then ask yourself: "Am I making the best use of my time?" If not, stop what you are doing , re-access what you are doing, and begin working on a project that will allow you better use of your time. If you are 'bogged down' or don't want to start a project, use the ten minute rule: set a timer for 10mins and start your project.  If after 10mins you still aren't in the flow of this project -stop and move onto another project.  If after 10mins you are in the flow of this project, then keep going!

3. Work with goals in mind.

It’s amazing how differently we work when you have goals to work towards. If you don't know what your goals are, stop now and spend some time working out what they may be. Use them as a road map for your daily 'to-do' list! Examples may be professional (project deadline, sales quotas, product development, etc) and personal (health, fitness, family relationship, financial, etc).

4. Handle every e-mail only once.

Use the '3 D' rule of Do it, Delete it or Delegate it. Use day-based folders to keep your inbox on track. Check your emails twice through out the day, and then either respond if that is needed, delete it or place it in the appriorate day-based folder. If you print a copy then use the '3 D' rule, for this as well!

5. Ask some one who is efficient - What their secret is?

Ask the most efficient person you know what their secret is and how did they develop these habits. Then see if it will work for you.  Remember that productivity is a habit, so be prepared to give this new habit time.

6. Don't allow anyone to take your time from you.

Set up boundaries around your time. If you are constantly interrupted with phone calls - think about

forwarding your phone to voice mail, and then bundling your return calls at a certain time.  If you work by appointments and someone is late for an appointment and hasn't contacted you - give them 15 minutes past the appointed time and then move on. It is up to you as to how you allow other people to use your time!

7. Build family and personal time into your day.

We all need to have the support of our family or friends - so make sure you build them into your daily habits. You don't want to get to the end of your working life and realise that you missed out on the closeness and development of your family.

8. Your health is important - isn't it!

Maintain your health and fitness because this is what will help you through in the long run. There are three things that I feel are valuable to us all - they are time [which we are talking about]; knowledge and energy. Take care of your energy and its levels. At the end of the day being overworked and stressed is only going to hamper your health. So take extra care of this - go for a walk, have a massage, spend time with your family, stop, breathe and smell the roses.

9. Dry clean the clutter from your office and home.

Take some time to remove the clutter from your life. The more you simplifier your office or life the more time you will have. Clutter zaps your energy and allows you to waste time on non-valuable tasks. So plug the holes today.

10. Work in your peak performance times.

Schedule demanding tasks to the part of the day that you work best, where your energy levels are at their highest. It maybe first thing in the morning or early afternoon - work out when it is and then see yourself moving ahead.

What are your favourite strategies for being productive?  Feel free to share them with us here and over on our facebook page.

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Years ago, I used to run work/life balance workshops for many large organisations – it was something that I truly believed in. It was my soapbox for many years. I could rattle off all the statistics as to why it was important; give you worksheets to show you how to do it properly, and hound you relentlessly if you didn’t do it the way research (and I) said it should be done.

That was until I realised that work/life balance was a total crock! The notion of work/life balance and all its ramifications was designed to make us feel more guilty than we needed to.

And I have been reminded of this issue over the past few weeks when working with my mentor clients, and again during lunch today with my colleague. My clients are shocked when I tell them that work/life balance is really just a marketing tool and nothing more. My lunch date was on the same page as me, and agreed totally. So there we were having a great conversation about what the concept of work/life balance meant for each of us.

We started with this; Is there such a thing as work/life balance, and what if instead, we looked at it as simply balance – nothing more and nothing less? And that you were able to define what this meant for you and only you. How does that feel?

For me, balance is feeling contented at the end of the day, knowing that I’ve done the best I can for myself, my family, and my clients. To me , it means that it’s okay when I need to work twelve hour days to finish off a campaign. It means that the three hours I might do on a Saturday morning, is fine. And the reason it is fine, is because I will balance it out at the other end making sure I take the time out to connect with my family – this could be as simple as finishing early on some days, or heading away for a long weekend.

For Jen, it means that when she doesn’t finish a meeting with clients until after 7pm on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, she is able to balance this out by finishing early on Thursday or Friday and picking the kids up from school and focusing solely on them for a few hours. She has the support of her family, keeps them updated on what she is doing, and checks in regularly with how her children feel when Mum may not be there for dinner. Jen has learnt not to feel guilty about creating the life she wants for herself, because as she said: “I’m a happier wife and mother, when I'm able to create my own life balance.”

What does it mean for you? Are you able to create a balanced lifestyle based on your terms or do the well meaning people in your life make you feel guilty for doing what is right for you?

Feel free to send me through your thoughts on balance, and what it means to you. Tweet