Balance – the Weekly Update

Happy Sunday!

It’s been crazy busy around here lately.  Broken record, I know.  It’s been a blur of random hotel rooms, flight delays, and project deadlines.  I’m well ahead of the requalification game at the mid-point of the year with no end in sight.  And that’s a good thing because travel means I’m busy at work.

I’ve been lax on posting a weekly update because every week has been the same lately.  I haven’t even been good at photographing ny hotel rooms – the trouble of turning on the lights and not throwing my things across the bed is too much (and really, all Fairfield Inns start to look the same after a while!).  Its time to get my act together.  (To point, I recently cleaned out my day tote and pulled out about two dozen random room keys… insane.  And no hotel reviews for ANY of them!)

There are a few things I’ve been doing to keep some balance though… and working regular blogging back into the routine is the next step.  (I was so inattentive that I missed my one-year anniversary on Prior2Boarding!)

It was critical that I do a few things this last quarter – finish out the last of my client projects from my old firm, close out that firm (vacating space, disposing of assets, transitioning employees), get acclimated to the new firm, and get my accounts ramped back up to a full project load.

No pressure, right?  Luckily, I did it so now I’m adding everything back.  I’m now working to start getting my normal life activities back in the mix – yoga, volunteer work, doing laundry.  (Yes, that last one has even been a challenge!)

One of the things I do to keep an eye on balance is color-code my calendar – one color for clients, one for networking/prospecting, one for inter-office activities.  Then one for personal wellness (workouts, upkeep, vacations), one for volunteering, and so on.  When things feel out of kilter, it’s pretty easy to see how I’ve spending my time and I can adjust.  And when I scan the coming weeks, I can make adjustments – adding in a massage, making sure I get workout time, and planning ahead.

When I look at my Outlook from the second quarter, it looks very imbalanced – lots of green and blue and yellow (my work-related colors) and very little red and orange and purple (my personal colors).  So I’ve been working through the third quarter and trying to get things more in balance.

Speaking of planning, I’ve been using my Pinterest packing boards a lot.  And I’ve recently discovered Periscope – perhaps a way to better keep things up-to-date quickly!  (I’m sure I’ll find a lot to share on some of my upcoming trips – Las Vegas, the Oregon Brewer’s Festival, and a Mediterranean cruise!)

On the technology note, I finally joined the current decade and bought a Roku.  I’m now discovering the joy of binge watching shows while working from home.  Life changing!  (Yes, that means I’m finally catching up on all those Netflix original series!)

And finally, I’ve been slowly moving a lot of my life out to the Cloud.  Working on three separate (and not interlinked) computers – a home PC, a personal laptop, and a work laptop – has been great for compartmentalizing my life but has not made working from the road easy.  But joining the 21st century is fixing things, slowly!

Next week’s update will come from Las Vegas – and hopefully I’ll be back to my habit of sharing weekly travel news and with any luck, something slightly more exciting to share than my slightly more balanced calendar.

xoxo