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herlife | working womenFindingBalancein Your Lifeby chandra blackwellPut forth your effort to reap the results you want, and focus where itmatters most. Learn which things you can prioritize, delegate and eliminate.Here’s the problem with the concept of “finding balance.”When people talk about it, they almost always immediatelycreate a dichotomy—the things they don’t enjoy go on oneside of the scale, and “life” goes on the other. But here’s the thing. Lifedoesn’t exist at only one end of the seesaw. Any time that you spenddoing anything is your life. The time you spend flossing, searchingfor lost socks and scanning Facebook for photos of your seventh gradecrush is your life. So instead of balancing “good” elements against“bad” (beach vacation against root canal, for example), focus on findinga place for everything that serves a purpose. Here are some ways tohelp you get started.Healthy balance should be based on the 80/20 rule, the famousbusiness doctrine which states that roughly 80 percent of desiredresults come from 20 percent of the causes. In practice, this means thatyou’re going to have to decide where your 20 percent lies. Put forthyour effort to reap the results you want, and focus where it mattersmost. Learn which things you can prioritize, delegate and eliminate.Easier said than done, right? But once you’ve created a “short list”of elements in your life that you feel deserve your best efforts, try takinga “big picture” look at your life—how do you spend your time rightnow, and how much of that time is spent on things that are importantto you? Then figure out how you can create more time for the thingsthat are important to you by asking yourself some key questions abouteach activity in your life not crucial to your goals.Does it have to be done? If the answer is ‘no’ (and let’s be honest:any TV marathon involving a show with the word Housewives in thetitle would probably be a ‘no’), it’s time to eliminate that activity fromyour life. If the answer is ‘yes,’ then ask yourself the next question.Does it have to be done by me? This is a tricky question becausenot only are some habitual activities difficult to give up, they can alsobe difficult to delegate. Certain activities give us a sense of importancethat can be hard to let go. But will your two-year-old really notice if she54 HERLIFEMAGAZINE.COM