Finding Balance

 

In this new year many of us have promised ourselves to try and find more balance in our lives. I personally vowed to spend more time connected with the earth through hiking, walking on the beach, and playing hard with my four 20-something kids. And yet with all of the meaningful work I am engaged in online I often find it difficult to unplug. How does one balance their personal and professional lives, especially while living in a world where often those in the communities to which I belong contribute to a significant part of my personal growth and constitute a great deal of the human interaction I receive each day? How do I draw the line in the sand between have-tos and want-tos when because of the personalness of the connections the lines have become grayed?

TECHNOLOGY CAN HELP
Some folks tell me that if I buy the Life Balance software for iPhone and iPod touch that it will help a multi-tasking mobile professional like me who struggles to keep up with the demands of their busy life. Life Balance(TM) is personal coaching software that helps you to decide what to work on, so that you can put your effort into the goals, projects and tasks that really matter to you.

Scott Elias, Expert Voice in the New Jersey cohort of Powerful Learning Practice is looking closely at this issue of balancing our real and virtual lives. He gives a powerful tip for keeping up with the deluge of email you are receiving.

"First, if the very idea of having an empty inbox sounds absurd to you, check out Merlin Mann's "Inbox Zero" series (complete with a video of a talk he gave at Google). The most useful idea I took away from this series if the idea of scheduling short email "dashes" where you process what you've got and move on."

Scott also shares a tool for helping to managing your "to-do" tasks called Remember the Milk. Scott likes RTM (as those "in the know" call it) because adding tasks is super-simple. "You can add directly from the web interface, you can follow @rtm on Twitter and "Tweet" tasks to yourself from your cell phone, or you can email single tasks or lists of tasks to a special, top-secret RTM email address. Once you've sent your tasks, they show up in your inbox."

Technology is willing and able to help us keep us organized and accountable. More than ever before  we have the knowledge management tools to help us keep up! Such as these--

So we have to ask ourselves is technology the problem when it can provide so many solutions? Or does true balance come from somewhere else?

My superintendent, a wise man indeed, once told me that technology only gives the illusion of saving time because we quickly fill the time we save with new tasks resulting in our professional lives being even busier than before. In many ways I think his perception is true. It as if we have this empty void we are all trying to fill. We are all looking for that sense of purpose in knowing what we are doing will matter in the end. It is the struggle of balancing the tension of change- wanting change, realizing that something different is needed and yet being terrified of losing something valuable in the long run. John Connell once told me that it isn't change we fear, but loss.

ARE WE FOCUSING ON THE WRONG THING?

Stephen Downes says, "The difference between the physical and the virtual is illusory - it is a distinction that has been marketed hard by companies that want to keep selling you paper. But the virtual is the physical - the people online are real, the computers are real, the impact of your words is real, and it all happens in the physical world to people with physical bodies."

Maybe that is why balance is so hard to achieve? Maybe we have been focusing on the wrong thing? Maybe the tension isn't between balancing our real and virtual lives, but more about balance in life in general? What I do online is very much a part of my real life. I am building real connections with people around the world from whom I am learning a great deal. My life is richer and I am a better person because of the relationships I have built online. The work I do is purposeful and meaningful and very much a part of my real life. Maybe the answer to making it all work comes in understanding how to integrate it all and realizing that by letting go (change) I will have loss, but what will follow will make me more effective in reaching my big picture goals. The secret is realizing that virtual is part of our real world now and it can't be thought of as "one more thing" added to our already impossible day, but rather it needs to become a seamless, embedded part of our normal day. Kind of like how families adapt when a new child is born. Somehow we find time to incorporate all the new things that have to be done in caring for a baby into our busy lives. We fumble at first thinking we will never adapt and then before you know it is becomes "business as usual."

I look forward to learning with you this year as together we try and find balance in our lives and turn business as unusual to business as usual.

Comments

[Charlie A. Roy]

@Sheryl
Sometime I wonder if multi tasking just means a multitude of tasks get done at an average rate. Technology seems to increase the speed that certain tasks can be done with freeing up time to be more productive. I find the always on connectivity to sometimes infringe on the balance I need. When I'm with my family at the park I don't want to be tied into twitter, im, or frankly have anyone call me. Sorry to have missed you at educon. I hope you're feeling better.

[Bill]

"You can add directly from the web interface, you can follow @rtm on Twitter and "Tweet" tasks to yourself from your cell phone, or you can email single tasks or lists of tasks to a special, top-secret RTM email address. Once you've sent your tasks, they show up in your inbox."

The above is a scary sentence and creates a tension that I really most learn how to use all these technologies. Because I don’t use them, I don’t have the extra time to learn them--Catch-22. Now I’m even more out-of-balance.

[Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach]

Charlie said, "When I'm with my family at the park I don't want to be tied into twitter, im, or frankly have anyone call me."

Me either. But then I do not want my family talking to me when I am engaging with others online either.

For me the connection and play with loved ones and the earth (I am a big outside person)is a top priority- but the connection I have with folks like you (who I learn so much from) is important too.

I am trying to balance.

[Melissa Smith]

For me my balancing issue corresponds with Charlie. I have trouble slowing down with technology because there is so much out there that I become too excited and overwhelmed. So now I want to learn about RTM, but there are 50 other programs and sites that I want to master. I think if I could escape to a remote location, without my children or work, then I could catch up and find a balance. But that isn't reality either. And if by chance I got that opportunity as soon as I returned some new things would get posted, programs would be developed, a new idea would emerge, my 2 year old would need a play mate, etc. So I will just find the balance by living in the "now" and tackling whatever is in my face and accidentally forgetting the to-do's that I didn't pause to Twitter to myself. :-) I will breathe deeply and smile.

[Lani]

From one who's never been good with balance--

I'd agree --the tension arises from balancing life in general--

I'm wondering if our desire to make a difference in the world, we inadvertently forget the potential to make significant differences in our family's and our personal lives--

Is it possible that listening to our inner souls (isn't that what new parents do) and following those intuitions could help with balance? I'm hoping because I think that's where I'm at now--

Best,
lani

[Heath Sawyer]

Stephen Covey explores life balance in his 7 habits of highly effective people and expresses the importance of balancing the various aspects of our lives. I agree in the concept but don't subscribe to the idea that balance means all things should be equal all of the time. We are of course dynamic beings with conscious thought and need to practice discernment of putting 'first things first'. I definitely have a bunch of gadgets that help me organise my life but I think I would draw the line on being told or even prompted as to what best choices I should make by Life Balance software. After all, can we learn from our mistakes if someone or something else made the choice for us?

heheboy

[Annelise]

I'm listening to Merlin Mann's video now on managing email. Thanks for the great resource on managing inbox. I for one know that my inbox is out of control, yet it is the primary method of communication for me with everything I do at work. I'm always refining and looking for better ways to manage my inbox. Good tips at 43folders website.

As for the balance... I think it's achievable but certainly without hard work. For me personally, I'm not sure the technology is the key to helping. It's an endless drain bursting with information that never stops. Or maybe it's me that doesn't stop, and that's the balance needing to be found....I know for me personally, the balance in many ways needs to be without the technology.

[Eddie Shaw]

Hello,
This site was recommended to me by a fellow educator and it is excellent. Great ideas and blogging.
Keep up the excellent work.
Eddie

[Jeanne Simpson]

Sheryl,

I have taken an extended break from the blogosphere because I was seeking balance in my life. I did not succeed! You are correct that technology is neither the problem nor the solution. I like your analogy comparing the newness of these exciting tools to adding a new baby to the family. Sometimes the upheaval lasts quite a while. Most of the time we never return to normal...we find a new normal. That is what I am hoping to do as I ease back into my virtual world. I have missed the real friendships that I have formed here, and I am looking forward to renewing them and finding new friends.

[Sharon Padget]

Hi,

As I read your posting, I have come to the realization that I too have been needing to find that balance. It has been hard this past year. My daughter left college with only one year left. My high school daughter moved out to live with a 24 year old and she is 17. I moved with my husband to a new home. The only thing so far that has kept me on an even keel is knowing I can go to this blog and my other places such as twitter and connect again with the good things in life. I am reminded that others have it worse than I do and that life will get better. Technology has been something I enojoy learning and being invloved in with my classroom.