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We frequently write about starting a side hustle, funding your favorite hobby, securing a promotion, and prioritizing fun experiences. Collectively, these themes lead some friends to ask us how we balance these various priorities. Time is the true finite resource; while we can make more money, we cannot make more time for ourselves after a certain level of prioritizing our health. Deciding how to divide the time within your life is the most important decision you have because it is the resource you can never reclaim.
Just the fact that our lives are finite can throw folks out of balance as they stress about how to spend their time, if they acknowledge our finite lives at all. Acknowledging the finite quality of our lives is actually the best way to lead a meaningful life. Removing the false assumption that we are going to live forever allows us to consider what is important. Prioritize happiness and you will find balance.
While prioritizing happiness over our short lives sets the mindset, the specifics about how we balance all of life’s competing priorities remains challenging for many. Balance is often used in phrases like “work-life balance,” a misnomer since it implies that you are supposed to have co-most-important objectives. It also implies that “life” is one predictable obligation rather than a mix of dynamic and competing interests. Your life is finite and most important. Balance is being at peace with how you allocate the pieces of your life (time and energy) towards the many interests of importance in your life.
Set one Priority at a Time
At any particular moment in time, it is only possible to have one priority. If one thing is your priority, nothing else is. Finding balance requires you to make the difficult decisions initially to decide what the absolute most important priority is in that moment and work to make sure you adequately prioritize it.
This may sound impossible in a world with many competing priorities. However, setting this priority does not mean it will always be your top priority. Once a part of our lives is prioritized, it slowly becomes a habit and can be put on autopilot for continued maintenance. For an easy example, if your physical fitness is your current priority, you need to build the habits of consistently going to the gym over a few months. Once you make gym friends and the gym becomes an important feature in your identity and lifestyle, you can shift to another priority. You will keep going to the gym because this is now just part of who you are.
Each time we set a small piece of our lives as a priority and commit to seeing it through, that priority becomes part of our identity enabling us to carry it throughout our life as a piece of who we are. Our priorities usually require an initial burst of effort but get easier over time as they become habits and then part of our identities. When you set a new priority and worry about waning enthusiasm towards it, remember James Clear’s concept that every time you practice that activity, you are casting a vote to make it part of your identity. For example, each time you write for twenty minutes is a vote cast for you being an author. Set a priority that has you casting votes that make you happy.
Add One New Thing at a Time
If you set an initial priority and make it a habit tied to your identity, you can then set a new priority while assuming that habit will continue on autopilot. However, it is important not to switch priorities too soon, switching before one is a formed habit, or to add multiple priorities at once. After we repeat this process a few times, we can start to think that we are the greatest time management experts that can add multiple priorities at once. This is incorrect.
Time management is not balance. While effective time management can provide an outline for prioritizing the new objective, time management is too often used as a way to split time between competing interests in a way that ultimately prioritizes none of the interests. Achieving balance is the process of assessing our current situation and understanding that the last priority we set has become a resilient part of us, so now it is time to grow by adding another priority to our being.
If you feel unbalanced, it is not time to add a new priority. The time to add is when you feel so balanced that you are feeling stagnant and unchallenged by growth opportunities. When this occurs, add one new thing. This new thing becomes your new priority, so it can eventually become part of you.
Say No to the Unimportant
The greatest hindrance to focusing on a main priority is the minutiae that demands our attention despite not being prioritized at that time. The best discipline we can practice to achieve our main priority is to say no to the unimportant. The unimportant is a tricky concept: The unimportant may even include opportunities related to what you anticipate will be your next priority. However tempting, tackling this future priority early will most likely prevent you from achieving either priority in a timely manner.
Saying no to the unimportant does not mean making cruel decisions that may make you appear selfish or disconnected from communities you established in previous priorities. If your workout buddy from the gym needs help moving next Saturday, that is important because your workout buddy is integral to your gym habit and the community that makes that habit part of you. However, your time should be dedicated within reason. While you should help your friend from the gym move, you do not need to dedicate 50 hours to that same friend’s business venture that does not even interest you. Saying something is not your area of expertise is an appropriate line to draw to prevent you from spending time and energy in areas that are not your priority.
Schedule Free Time
Spontaneous opportunities related to your current priority or the important habits that compose your identity will arise at unpredictable moments. We sometimes have to make tradeoffs because we cannot physically be in multiple places at once. However, in a world that increasingly allows virtual connection, fast travel, and instant communication, we have the ability to seize more of these opportunities than ever before.
But we cannot seize new opportunities if we do not have any spare time. Having a new priority does not mean dedicating all of your time and energy to it. You should still automatically dedicate some time to your other identity habits as well as the fun and joyful activities in your life. Then, take the importance of time one step further. You should always have blocks of time in a weekly calendar that are completely free. On weeks when no opportunities arise, these are times to reflect, relax, and have fun. On weeks when the important opportunity does arise, these blocks of free time enable you to say yes to personal growth. Even if that block of time is not when a hypothetical event is, the block of free time allows you to shift a client meeting to that time to free up the block of time you actually need.
An important friend to me recently reached out about writing a recommendation letter when her boss flaked on their commitment and could no longer write the letter. When she first asked, I was worried I would have to say no, despite this definitely being an important activity, because I had a busy next five days. Luckily, she told me with more than a week’s notice, so I was able to add this important commitment to my next free time block and write the recommendation letter. (And yes, she got into the PhD program of her choice!)
These blocks of free time allow us to seize important growth opportunities as well as be present for the important communities we have already established in our lives. Without blocks of free time every week, it is difficult to feel balanced because there are always last-minute additions and changes to the calendar of life. Adding just a degree of flexibility alleviates a world of stress and disappointment.
Take Serious Breaks
Once you have gone through the process of adding a priority, making it an identity habit, and moving to the next priority a few times, you will find that you somehow have a lot of important activities running through your life. Trust me, I know. Even if you add these priorities while maintaining balance, you need to take breaks from the multiple streams of income/multiple hobbies/multiple communities daily life to take some time for yourself. While your weekly free-time blocks are essential to maintain balance on a weekly basis, you do need some greater stretches of time to yourself.
Whenever I travel outside of the country, I disconnect completely. I pretend it is 1999 and keep my cell phone on airplane mode. I do not take calls, text people, check email, or talk to anyone other than those on the vacation with me. (Do not worry, I still have my phone for photos, Google Maps, or a hypothetical emergency.) Disconnecting completely allows me to read inspiring books, self-reflect on my recent priorities and potential future priorities, and enjoy the beauty of wherever I am visiting. Right now, I make sure to have these typically one-to-two week periods of reflection at least three times a year.
My approach is not the only possible method to take a serious break. Some folks practice a weekly technology shabbat, regardless of their religious beliefs, where all devices are completely banned. Others may allocate an entire month to reflecting and relaxing but only schedule this time once a year. The frequency and duration need to work for your lifestyle and individual needs.
My Balanced Life
I frequently receive questions about whether I am doing too much, but I also rarely talk to folks who seem less stressed and more balanced than I feel. A big part of my balance is that I implemented the strategy above over the course of the last decade to slowly improve my habits. I am now at a point of compound habit stacking where I can fit a lot of valuable priorities into my finite life. Right now, these include:
Writing articles and creating weekly newsletters for Phippen Tax & Financial Services
Creating resumes and providing career consulting
Running an Etsy shop
Practicing rugby twice a week and playing matches on Saturdays
Coaching college rugby twice a week and attending matches when I am not playing
Going to the gym 3–4 times a week and running 2–3 times a week
Prioritizing health with monthly sports massages, compression therapy, and red light therapy
Serving as the division coordinator in my rugby region
Prioritizing my financial wellbeing with monthly financial check-ins to check net worth and manage my accounts
Reading part of a book daily
Visiting my rooftop pool each week, weather permitting
Attending tons of baseball games with season tickets in both Washington, DC and Baltimore as well as planning annual trips to visit new or favorite (Fenway Park and Dodger Stadium!) ballparks
Prioritizing travel and visiting friends and family by spending between 80–90 days away from home in 2023, including 32 days completely disconnected outside the country
Spending time with local friends and participating in fun local activities, from happy hours at the pool to hikes in Virginia
Working my actual full-time job well enough to secure a promotion even though I take at least 30 days of leave a year (more this year!)
Five years ago, achieving this level of balance would have been unfathomable for me. Ten years ago, I could barely survive just having a job. Perhaps most interesting, I felt more stress and less balance five years ago before I had established many of these identity habits. The quest to achieve balance and add one priority at a time gradually shows you everything you are capable of dedicating time and energy to while still prioritizing yourself.
Wherever you are on the journey to your personal balance, appreciate how far you have come. I recently stood in my kitchen eating a bowl of oatmeal with blueberries after a morning run and reflected on how far I have come in making healthy choices that improve my life. Each habit was added one at a time, but years later, there are so many to enjoy. Our lives are finite, so choose where to use your time and energy to feel complete and balanced.
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