Last week, I unplugged four out of the five weeknights. After 4:30/5 pm, I was off the computer and remained off. One night I was forced to unplug, but that’s another story you can read about on 40weeks Plus. However, what I realized last week was how great unplugging can be. I still think I got lots done – work-wise anyway, not in the home – but, I don’t feel overly spent.

Something else I found myself doing was connecting with my husband in small ways. Nothing major – but, I would catch myself staring at him, admiring the hard work he does to be a good father and husband. I found myself actually missing him and yearning to be near him. It brought back memories of those intense, passionate, and highly emotional days when we were only sixteen and learning to love each other.

Wonderful, isn’t it?

My unplugging continued through the long holiday weekend. I don’t think I opened the laptop more than once over the three day weekend, rarely checked in on email on my phone, and only tweeted once or twice over the weekend. While it wasn’t 100% unplugged, anyone who knows about working from home, especially in social media, knows it really was unplugging compared to a normal day.

And, not surprisingly, my world is not turned upside down. Sure, I have a few more emails to answer than I did on Friday afternoon, but nothing urgent. Yes, I could have gotten ahead on blog writing for this week, but all will not be lost. Instead, I have a weekend full of family time to show for it and many laughs that were shared. If only the house had cleaned itself while we were having fun this weekend…

Very timely, as I was going through my google reader account yesterday, these two posts were there waiting for me to read:

• The Importance of Soul Work for Bloggers and Businesswomen
• Productivity & Quality Down Time: They Go Hand in Hand

How did you spend your holiday weekend? Did you celebrate Labor Day as I did by taking a day off?

Ever have one of those days when you just want to push the “delete all” button – in your inbox and life in general? I’m having one of those…weeks. I not only want to clear my inbox and start all over, but I wish I could do the same with my house and other aspects of my daily life.

I know many of you strive to manage it all and have some type of work-life balance, much like me. So, in an effort to help each other out, I’m going to lay it all out and share my current struggles. Perhaps in doing so, I can get rid of the mental clutter and move on to actually setting a plan of action to get things done. Or, at the very least, it will provide an outlet for venting.

Current challenges I’m struggling with:

• 160 unread emails: plus a bunch more marked unread and starred for action
• Messy house: every room in our house needs help
• An ever-growing to-do list: I have several projects I’m working on outside of managing this blog and my pregnancy blog. Each project has a to-do list that seems to add 2 items for every 1 I cross off.
• Cooking: Last night was the first time in a while – maybe a month – that we had an actual real meal. I’ve been traveling quite a bit, and dinner menu planning fell off the radar.
• Physical issues: Of course, due to the pregnancy, my energy and stamina are not what they should be. I’ve been able to keep up quite well, considering, as was pointed out by several friends who’ve seen me at recent events, but it’s still not what it could be.

So, what do I plan to do about it? I’m not exactly sure yet. I hope to stabilize one or two projects, so they can be more manageable. I may just hit delete on quite a few emails in order to get my inbox to a workable status. (Maybe. I’ll admit, it’s a little scary to think about doing that.) And, perhaps I can take advantage of upcoming weekends that are relatively free of commitments to dedicate time to the house and put a dinner menu back in effect.

Do you have current challenges you’re facing? Want to share with the rest of us in an effort to help each other with ideas for getting back on track?

Guest post: Sandy Salle is a native of Zimbabwe and was born and raised in Southern Africa. She is the Chief Executive Officer of Hills of Africa travel and is passionate about using her first-hand knowledge of Africa to create the trip of a lifetime for her clients. Currently based state-side in North Carolina, she resides with her husband and two small children. Sandy travels home to Africa several times a year and believes that the next best thing to living in Africa is sharing it with others.

Like most work-at-home mothers, I wage a daily battle against the clock to get the kids dressed, emails sent, homework completed, proposals drafted, calls returned, and dinner cooked all within an impossible twenty-four hours.

Struggling to do it all, I began multitasking, but I found that, when I did everything at once, nothing was done well. This, in turn, led to guilt: I got to the soccer game late, I didn’t have time to distribute the invoices, and I was on conference calls the entire time my daughter and I were making cookies for her class. Wasn’t the whole reason I left the office to work at home so that I could spend more time with my kids? Yet, here we were together, and I was so distracted with everything that still had to be done, that I wasn’t present.

As the CEO of Hills of Africa travel, a premier provider of personalized, luxury safari vacations, I have big responsibilities at work. Clients depend on me to plan once-in-a-lifetime safari trips for them, and it’s hard to do that when I am scrambling to clean up the house during the few quiet hours my kids are at school. On the other hand, I don’t want to sacrifice time with my kids. They are only young once, and this time with them is precious. I want them to be experiencing their childhood with me instead of a nanny.

Exhausted, guilt ridden, and overwhelmed, I had to make a change. Here’s what I did . . .

Stopped Multitasking

My first step was to create a structured work schedule around the time my kids are at school, 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. During this time, 100% of my energies are focused on Hills of Africa—no more scheduling play dates or baking during conference calls. No matter where I am in my work at 3:30, I close up shop and refocus all my attention on my kids.

Eliminated Distractions

The old me would sit in front of the computer first thing in the morning and look through a few emails before jumping up to brew a pot of coffee or download a few songs to listen to while I worked. Each of these small tasks took time and broke my concentration. Now, before I even sit down at my desk, I have cup of coffee in hand, my favorite classical play-list on, and my personal phone line set to go straight to voice-mail, so that I can sit down for several hours of uninterrupted work. It’s amazing how much more I began to accomplish when I wasn’t jumping up to switch the laundry every couple of hours!

Became Present

Just being physically there with my kids was not enough. I had to be mentally and emotionally present for our time together to be meaningful. Now, when I’m with my family, I’m not just there, I’m present, listening, and interacting. I mentally free myself from distracting work obligations when I’m with the kids. At the end of the day, my kids crave my attention more than my home-cooked meal, and there’s no shame in occasionally ordering a pizza if it means that we get to eat and engage in conversation together as a family.

Let It Go

If that client call has yet to be made and those pots and pans still need to be washed when the kids arrive home, I forget about it. It can get done the next day. I’ve learned that supermom is an impossible notion, and I can’t do everything by myself. I now have my groceries delivered by Peapod and outside assistance with housekeeping. Anything that allows me to focus my work time completely on my job and my family time completely on my kids is a worthwhile expense.

A long time ago there was a commercial for a pregnancy test on TV that showed a woman standing up and thinking, “I can’t concentrate. Could I be pregnant?” For years, my husband and I laughed at the commercial because we could not make the connection as to what one had to do with the other. Why would she think she was pregnant just because she couldn’t concentrate? The idea seemed absolutely ludicrous to us.

Now that I’m pregnant with our second child, I find that I am the woman from that commercial. And, I’m eating my words – or laughter, in this case. I totally get it now. I’m unable to concentrate and am having a somewhat hard time adjusting and maintaining my work-life balance.

More specifically, I’m finding it a bit difficult to deal with the pregnancy symptoms  – the various aches, and especially the lack of energy – plus entertain and play with my baby girl. I’m getting tired of saying, “Mommy’s not feeling good” and I know she must be tired of hearing it. I can only do so many couch-based activities with her before she requires more stimulation. I’ve tried reading together, watching movies, and playing board games, to name a few things. I get up and moving with her when I can, but it’s not long before, “Mommy has to sit down and take a break.”

I know she’s an understanding girl and for the most part moves on to do another activity. Often times my husband will take over and do something with her until I can keep playing. But, the mommy guilt is coming on full-force these days and I can feel she’s getting frustrated. I’m getting frustrated. It’s even causing tension between us and I find these days we are often snapping at each other; the hormones aren’t helping with my patience either.

Of course, other aspects of our home life are affected, such as keeping up with the household. Luckily, I have a great husband who is doing his part to keep up with things around the house. But, that is not as serious an issue in my mind as the connection with my daughter. That is something he cannot help with.

So, today I want to hear from all of you who already have two, three, and especially those of you who have four or more kids. I want to know how you managed your pregnancies while also working, managing a household, and caring for and entertaining your kids. Hopefully I’m not the only one out there who’s had this issue when pregnant the second time around and you’ll be able to provide some input.

How did you deal with the pregnancy symptoms and maintain a sense of work-life balance?

As a full-time working mom, it’s very hard for me to keep up with the household duties. I’ve posted before about the expectations – false no doubt – that I’ve set for myself.

Elizabeth over at Career & Kids touched on the subject recently, when a friend of hers realized there’s not enough time in the week. As she mentions, when you’re working all week, you want to use the weekend to spend time with the family. That is when I’d like to take a trip to the zoo, the park, or sometimes it’s just a matter of the “must” trips – like grocery shopping that needs to be done.

What can working moms do to manage the housework?

I’m not sure I have the answer just yet, but I AM trying something new.

I’ve set up a weekly chore schedule and broken down the housework to a little each day – there’s even a day off!

Here’s my schedule:

• Sunday: clean bathrooms
• Monday: wash laundry
• Tuesday: fold laundry
• Wednesday: sweep & mop
• Thursday: vacuum
• Friday: OFF day
• Saturday: change bed sheets

Plus, every day is de-clutter day, since this can be done simultaneously with the other chores. That means, putting away toys, clearing the day’s mail, and other small tasks. The chores scheduled on the weekend can be done quickly in the morning before heading out for the day.

To keep track of my schedule, I’ve printed out Hannah Keeley’s Total Mom Chore Chart, but any calendar will do.

I’m hoping this will help keep me on track and make things a bit more manageable. I’ve just made my list this week, so I’m only starting to put it into practice.

How do you manage your housework?

Photo by Jane Ring

Have you been thinking about what work-life balance means to you? Or even just balance in and of itself? Well, there are some people who think there is no such thing. The phrase work-life balance alone is contradictory in their eyes.

I recently came across The myth of work/life balance, in which the author proposes changing the term work-life balance to “work-life compro-balance.” Her thinking is that compromises always have to be made when you’re trying to achieve balance. So, by changing the name, you get more realistic expectations of your goals and it allows “…you the opportunity to forgive yourself if you don’t get everything done in the day.”

The second part of her post actually provides very practical advice. She suggests that you look at the big-picture and evaluate all aspects of your life, separating the things you have to do from those you want to do. Assign percentages to each item based on your available time, realizing of course that there are only a set number of hours available each week. This will allow you to see your time as a whole and as she says, you will “… have an understanding of why you aren’t able to fit certain things in your life, thus reducing guilt and the feeling of pressure.”

Do you agree with her opinion that work-life balance doesn’t exist?

I, personally, can understand her reasoning. But, I feel that if you define balance to fit your needs and lifestyle, then you will be able to have work-life balance in your life since you’ll be striving for your own personalized definition and goals. Whatever you feel provides you with a feeling of balance when juggling work, life, and family, then that is what you will work towards each day.

Weigh in with your opinion in the comments below. Work-life balance or work-life compro-balance?

This weekend, a good friend of mine mentioned a book she recently read (or heard about) called Men Are Like Waffles – Women Are Like Spaghetti. The idea is that the brain of a man works much like a waffle in that it has divisions and separate containers for each thought. On the other hand, a woman’s brain works like spaghetti in that everything is mixed and intertwined.

Sound familiar?

We proceeded to discuss the idea a bit with a few other friends that were over – the conversation was primarily dominated by women, but did include my husband and my friend’s husband. The men gave good input like reminding us women that when a man says he’s not thinking about anything…it’s really true, he’s not thinking about anything. They said that sometimes some of their waffle compartments are just empty.

For me, that is extremely hard to understand. It seems that everything we do as women affects something else. We’re always thinking of the next thing while doing another. We are great multi-taskers as my friend’s husband was quick to point out. And, that’s great. It often works to our benefit. But, sometimes, just sometimes…I’d love it if my brain could function like a waffle and just focus on one thing at a time. And I’d really love it if I could have some empty spaces in that waffle that allowed me to think of nothing.

Wouldn’t that be nice ladies?

Just think how much more balanced we’d feel if we weren’t always worried about the next thing. Perhaps that’s why the majority of information on work-life balance that’s out there is geared towards women. Men already have it figured out? Or they don’t feel like they have to do it all? And all at the same time? They just focus on each little section of their waffle?

What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this as you think about yourself and your spouse (if you have one) or other relationships you’ve observed.

Photo by Beth Sobel from Flickr

Today has been a very balanced day for me. I was able to work out this morning, did some client work, responded to a few emails, worked on this blog, and even put a load of laundry to wash. For me, that’s a great balance of taking care of myself, working, managing social media, and house work. It’s not much either – you notice I didn’t say I cleaned the entire house. Nor did I answer all emails. But, it was a good bit of each and I feel good with what I’ve accomplished today.

Of course, this is not an everyday occurrence. But, as I get more and more used to working from home, I find that I’m finding little things I can do to feel more balanced. Even if that means redefining what “balanced” means.

But, don’t take my word for it. Check out what others have to say about work-life balance and read their recommendations.

5 Resources with Tips for Finding or Improving your Work-Life Balance

5 Tips for Better Work-Life Balance from WebMD
Something that stuck out when reading this article was when the author said, “You would probably think twice before skipping out on work, a parent-teacher conference, or a doctor’s appointment. Your private time deserves the same respect.”

In other words, do not rearrange your free time and “squeeze in” something else. Treat it just like any other appointment in your calendar.

Work-life balance: Ways to restore harmony and reduce stress from Mayo Clinic
I loved when I got to the end of this piece and read, “Balance doesn’t mean doing everything.”

A lot of times we think that achieving work-life balance means being able to do it all. In fact, it should be about doing what’s important to you, and all that you’re comfortable doing.

Photo by yesterday_once_more0 704 from Flickr

Basic Steps Toward Work-Life Balance from Forbes
The author in this article talked to a staffing company, whose president, Loretta Penn, said: “You don’t have to respond to every e-mail or voice mail as soon as it comes in. Just because someone else deems something a priority doesn’t mean it’s yours.”

It’s a good reminder, especially for us digital moms that are constantly plugged in; just because an email alert popped up on your phone, it doesn’t mean the email has to be answered within 30 seconds. It can wait.

How to Find the Right Work-Life Balance: 6 Steps from Caroline Middlebrook
This was a blog post written in early 2008 by Caroline Middlebrook, who quit her day job in order to start an online business and now makes money blogging. In it she said, “If I’ve not spent enough time with family or not called a friend for a while I’ll get that nagging feeling in the back of my mind…When your life is all in balance you’ll feel good and when something isn’t right you’ll feel bad in some way.”

I know that from time to time I’ll get such a feeling and find myself reassessing the situation and even asking my husband for input. Many times, he confirms that I’ve been off in one area and concentrating too much on another. As the author suggests, trust your instincts.

Top 10 Ways to Balance Life and Work from About.com
This article is geared towards dads, but offers tips that are good for anyone. Tips such as: “Sometimes, the things that suffer in our busy lives have to do with our own personal health…Managing your personal health is essential to balancing work and life.”

I think all parents know about putting your own health last. This too, serves as a good reminder.

What personal tips or suggestions do you have for maintaining a little balance in your life? What have you found works for you?

Check out more work-life balance resources I’ve saved on delicious.

The Type-A Mom Conference has been a blast so far! So many lovely ladies and lots of great (and funny!) conversations.

And today I’ll be speaking about Blogger’s Balance along with Robin Dance of Pensieve and Tara Gerner-Ziegmont of Feels Like Home.

Balance.

Don’t we all want that magical mid-point where it all goes smoothly? Just how do we get there anyway?

Are we going to answer that question for you and give you step by step directions for getting there?

No. Of course not. We’d be lying to you if we did that.

But, we will have a discussion on what balance means to different people, how they manage it, and perhaps even what the consequences of not having balance can be.

Personally, I think balance requires planning. From menu planning to even creating a cleaning schedule.

Beyond that, though, balance is not just being able to do all things. It’s also learning what to give up. You can’t do everything.

So, if you’re at the Type-A Mom conference, we’d love for you to join our conversation. And if you’re not, then join us virtually and leave your comments about blogger’s balance.

What does balance mean to you? How do you manage your time and attain balance? What do you feel are some challenges in not having balance?

Lately it seems that I totally suck at this balance thing. Ok, maybe suck is a strong word. But, I can say that I need to definitely work on my time management.

Being sick hasn’t helped either. It seems lately I spend all my time either laying on the couch trying to get over a headache (or *something*) or I spend my time cleaning one area of the house only for the rest of the house to be in chaos.

And weekends are just not long enough. After both of us being at work all week, there’s not enough time in two days to do everything we need to get done. Forget fun or things we want to do, I’m just talking about things we need to do. Like laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, cooking, and of course spending time playing with our baby girl. Because that’s absolutely on the need list for us.

Obviously, I need a little help to get myself and our household back in order. I need to get back into a routine that allows for most things to get done in a week. I think I’d be lying to myself if I tried to get all things done. It just never works out that way.

So, let me share with you some articles I’ve come across lately that provide tips on saving time and organizing your work or life in general. I share because maybe you’re like me and are looking to be more organized and productive or maybe just need to reduce a little of the chaos in your life.

Or maybe you’ve got it all together and could teach me a few things. In that case, skip right along past these links and leave me a comment with your wise words.

Organization and Time Saving Resources

1. The 4 Hour Workday
2. Simplify Your Life Week
3. Real Simple’s 18 Timesaving Tips
4. Simple Mom’s Steps for Organizing…Life
5. Organized Grocery Shopping

Whether you’ve got it all together or need a little help, leave me a comment and let me know. I can definitely use either your tips or the comfort of knowing I’m not alone.

Image credit: mirrorwithmemory