Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Tagged: Life Balance Meme

I was tagged by Laughing Muse (thanks!) to share my secrets on balancing life. So here goes:

How do you achieve balance in your life? I don't. I'm a mess. I'm either neglecting my writing for my kids, my husband for my writing, or my sleep for all three. And going to the gym is always at the bottom.

What is your biggest challenge in balancing your life? Time. Just not enough of it. But I keep telling myself that things will change. Eventually, there will be time for everything, I just need to be patient and prioritize for the time being. I recently commented to someone that life is all about juggling. If you try to keep all the balls in the air at once, they're going to eventually fall, boinking you on the head on the way down. It's better to let some balls drop and do a really good job with the few in the air. The ones on the floor can be picked up one by one as time allows.

What are your priorities? Kids, hubby, extended family, friends, reading/writing, health, housework. I need to take a page out of Christine's book. She's a wise one, that Christine...

How have your priorities changed over time and why? Absolutely. Before kids, I used to be all about my 'career'. Evenings, weekends, work work work. Imagine all those golden hours I could have been writing! I used to think I was busy before I had children. Ha!

My kids are an absolute priority now. And I'm glad! I waited a long time for them and I'm not an 'at home' mom for nothing. These precious years are fleeting. Before long, my youngest will start school and I'll have all day to create worlds in my head. Or read, go to the gym, do housework, get a (paying) job. Oh goodness. I'm stressing my self out already!

What advice can you share to help all of us balance our own lives? I'm probably not the authority on this, however, it's seems much easier to give advice than to follow one's own, so here goes:

Determine what is important -- decide what must to be done now and what can conceivably wait (yes, I know we all want to do 'it' now! We are the NOW generation!!). Once priorities are established and you only have enough on your plate that you can realistically deal with at one time give each 100% effort. Assess often.

I'm tagging Thomma Lyn and Amy 'cause she doesn't have enough on her plate ;)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great answers, Wylie! And hee hee, thanks for tagging me, even though I think you and I got tagged around the same time by two different people! :-D

And I love your juggling analogy. Wise and true.

It's almost bedtime and I'm getting goofy -- I had to do a doubletake to make sure I wasn't posting this as my cat (who has his own blog now, *giggle*!).

Anonymous said...

Those are excellent answers! And, I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't prioritize that well. You left a shameless plug for your book on my OLD blog, so I will shamelessly plug my NEW site at http://www.thiseclecticlife.com
Now, go to my NEW blog and leave a comment...and a link if you want!
I'd better turn off comments at my old blog, huh.

Wylie Kinson said...

I'm feeling right goofy myself TL.

Shelly -- OOPS! I corrected you in my sidebar.

Candy Minx said...

Wow, now I just need to know the secret to how you only juggle just so many things...hey that would be wisdom urp...missing some of that. Great post!

Vicky said...

Going to the gym is always my last priority - actually scratch priority... I don't even think it makes that list! ;)

Great post!

Wylie Kinson said...

Good point, Candy!! And I think it goes back to us being the 'now' generation. We just don't know how to wait for things, do we :)

Vicky - I MUST start taking my health & well being more seriously. Christine is right... it's just that I've been trained to put everyone else first (can you say Eastern European mother?)

Amy Ruttan said...

OOoh you wascaly wabbit. Ya, thanks for the tag (hint the sarcasim). I'll post after Thursday Thirteen, only cause I spent an hour on my 20th TT.

Great answers, so what was that malarky about not being organized?

Anonymous said...

Good advice! Now you just have to follow it.