New Year, New You…right? You’ve set your resolutions, and you’re determined to follow through. Maybe you vowed to lose weight, exercise more often, or clean up your diet. Or maybe you decided that you need greater work-life balance and want to spend more time with friends. Whatever change you’ve resolved to implement into your life in 2018, have you thought about how you are going to create and maintain balance in your daily routines?
Clare Evans, a time management, productivity, and leadership management coach based in the UK, has run her own business for 15 years. She works with people mainly over the phone due to the fact that many of them are abroad. Her clients range from ordinary people to directors of companies, and what they’re seeking is the same: time skills and balance. “I start with areas that they are busy and overwhelmed with,” she explains. “We identify what they want to change, and then I give practical tips and solutions.”
Hers is a more holistic approach to integrating all aspects of life. Evans looks at how clients spend their time and how they waste it. She emphasizes the importance of prioritizing and states that health is typically the first thing that people cut out of their lifestyle because of limited time. “Set an objective and make time for it,” she stresses. “10-15 minutes a day can be enough for exercise because a short period of high-intensity activity could be as effective as an hour in the gym.”
If you want to see friends, plan socialization. If you want to lose weight, set a goal and put in the work. Don’t break appointments with yourself.
In her book, Time Management for Dummies, Evans discusses how not having a healthy lifestyle leads to not feeling emotionally balanced, and then everything tends to be off. “Sometimes it’s about doing less instead of trying to cram everything in.” Of course, she doesn’t condone procrastination, but rather shelving low-priority objectives for later.
Evans offers online workshops and classes, both one-on-one and in groups, and personal coaching. “I spend 3-6 months establishing daily time habits in someone’s life so they can achieve their goals.” Her career as a coach has given not only her clients greater flexibility, but her as well. She used to work in the IT industry and recognized that many of her coworkers struggled with planning and time management and that she was skilled in coaching these areas. “I get to see the moments of clarity people have. They feel better about themselves and more confident,” she enthuses.
For more information check out Evan’s website www.clareevans.co.uk.
Elizabeth Grace Saunders has been a financial and time management coach for nine years with her business, Real Life E. She, like Evans, works with clients across the globe. A contributor to Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and Facts Company, Saunders was a writer and editor for 50 publications before she discovered her passion for coaching. Like many, she didn’t have a good work-life balance, but she eventually learned how. “I stopped working weekends and nights. My friends said I should coach people on how to manage their time since I learned how to.”
She begins by doing an assessment of people’s schedules and implements strategies depending on their needs, whether it be planning, delegating, or setting boundaries. Her advice to balance life’s activities : “Simplify your schedule and make hard choices for self-care and health.”
One of Saunder’s strategies is to layer activities, which involves combining two activities without diminishing effectiveness, unlike multitasking. If you want to work out and be with friends, work out together!
Another strategy is to satisfice, not to maximize. If you don’t have the energy to maximize your time and complete an activity to your full capacity, accomplish it nonetheless, whether or not you do it perfectly.
Saunders has three books on the topic, and her most recent, Divine Time Management, was published in November. “I felt like I had to integrate my faith as a Christian into my business. This book is about aligning time management with God.” She offers a group coaching program by the same name as well as individual coaching over the phone. Her new career has given her the opportunity to touch people’s lives more than she ever dreamed. “I can’t guarantee that their lives will be perfect afterward, but they are able to function, plan, be calm, and have inner strength,” she says.
For more information, visit her website www.reallifee.com/wp.
Author: Zoë Dunning