Life Balance

In my post a few days ago, one of my resolutions for 2011 is a better work – life balance. I am working on ways to still produce as much as ever but still give more time to my family. I’ve got a few ideas that I wanted to share, and am hopeful you’ll leave comments with your ideas.

Lunch time – I’m lucky enough to work from home quite a bit. On those days I make it a point to emerge from my home office which is down in our basement and eat lunch with my family. True, it’s a brief time, 20 to 30 minutes, but we still get to enjoy each others company. When I’m in the office for several days in a row, they come in to meet me at least once a week where we eat out together.

Date time – I have two daughters, so every couple of weeks my wife and I have “dates” with them. We let the girls plan what they want to do, and each of us takes a kid and goes on a “date”. That gives each of us one on one time with a kid, as well as giving the kids time apart from each other. My oldest daughter and I usually go to the local Doctor Who fan club meetings (she’s a huge Doctor Who fanatic, has her own sonic screwdriver and life size TARDIS). The other daughter loves ice skating and playing video games with me.

Remote working – Living room to dungeon. At the start of the year my wife and I redid our living room. We tossed our old sofa and each got a new recliner and end tables. I took an old laptop and ran the power cord through the drawer and out the back. Now I can sit in my comfy chair, pull out my laptop and remote control my two computers down in the dungeon (aka my home office). When I’m done, I simply close the lid, slide it back in the drawer and close it. It’s hidden out of sight, nice and neat. But now I can easily sit with the family and work on things that don’t require a lot of brain power, setting up virtual machines for example.

The “TO DO” list – Like many people I have a “to do” list apart from my work related tasks, stuff that needs doing around the house, car maintenance, yard work, etc. I’m trying to make a point to accomplish at least one thing on our to do list each week.

Portable Learning – Between my Kindle and Zune it’s now very easy to take my content consumption on the road. While I wait for the family to shop in some ladies clothing store, for example, I can sit and read or catch up on podcasts.

There’s a few ideas, hope they help you too, and please leave comments with your ideas!