Finding Balance in Narrow Spaces: A Guide to Navigating Work and Life
- Holly McIlwain
- May 3
- 7 min read
When the space between work and life is narrow, achieving balance becomes a daunting task. If you're engaging with the conversation around #narrowspaces, you understand what’s at stake: everything. Life, peace, work, financial stability, mental health, and physical wellness are all intertwined. With so much at risk, I encourage you to take charge and lead yourself through these narrow spaces.
Understanding Your Followers
Look around at those who rely on your leadership—whether at home, in your community, or in your workplace. What do they need? According to Gallup, the four essential needs of followers remain constant: Trust, Compassion, Stability, and Hope. These resonate profoundly within our narrow spaces.
Take Action: Observe and Reflect
I invite you to observe those who lead you. Here’s how:
Analyze Leadership Behaviors: How do they conduct one-on-one meetings that are vital for your growth?
Track Your Navigation: Assess how they help you manage the narrow spaces between work and life.
Gallup’s research over the past 30 years shows that unmet follower needs can widen the gap between work and life. A staggering 69% of respondents felt that enthusiasm about the future is a key indicator of a healthy organization. When leaders meet followers’ needs, the narrow spaces transform into harmony, fostering productivity and engagement.
Five Ways to Navigate Narrow Spaces
Let’s dive into five actionable strategies to better organize your life and work.
1. Time Management
Whether you are a time blocker, an app user, or a Covey’s Quadrant lover, understanding where and how you are spending your time is essential. (Perhaps you took my course, “Not Today: The Discipline of Delaying Distress”)
Many people that have attended my course have described their time management challenges (irrational urgency, procrastination, distractions, multitasking), and it really boils down to a decision making challenge. When everything is important, it’s hard to know where to focus. Getting organized about priorities, and being diligent about focusing on the right things, at the right times, can alleviate these challenges.
When I was deciding to step away from my corporate role, one thing from all those time management courses that I’ve taught over the years rang true:
You can always make more money. You just can’t make more time.
Being clear about the value that you place on time can be a defining factor in the decisions you make about how you spend it.
TIME FOR ACTION:
Where You Spend It: Identify how you allocate your time through methods like time blocking or apps.
Common Struggles: Recognize patterns like procrastination or distractions. Prioritize effectively to overcome decision-making challenges.
Value of Time: Remember, you can always earn more money, but time is irreplaceable. Clarify your priorities based on what you value.
2. Financial Awareness
Speaking of money, another component of navigating those narrow spaces is understanding where your resources go. Particularly those money resources. By analyzing spending habits, clarity is gained. If analyzing is too scary, just start by making a list of every monthly expenditure – the bills! The loans! The commitments! The regular expenses. This baseline is an essential place to start. Then add in those variables. (Check out this personal expense tracker from nerdwallet.)
In doing a review of monthly finances, you may start to observe some spending habits that surprise you. Namely, convenience spending and impulse spending. This past year, my family tried a little experiment - we cut out all of our weekly take out and drive through meals for just two months. The savings were astounding, but what we also saw was that planning ahead for back to back soccer games, long days on the road for work or client meetings, and even rushed dinner nights actually slowed us down and made us communicate more. We managed to have most dinners around the dinner table, and saw a drop in food waste in our household. Financial savings aside, it was well worth it. Once you identify what you struggle with, you can establish a plan to tackle it.
Many of us are well acquainted with the impact of financial stability on overall well-being–less stress! But there is this tension between needs and wants. We work hard - we deserve good things! The thing about money is that it usually spends much more easily than it is earned, so making sure that you understand all of your spending, and have an organized approach to managing finances is critical for life, and for work.
TIME FOR ACTION:
Track Your Spending: Start by listing your monthly expenses. Use tools like personal expense trackers to gain clarity.
Identify Patterns: Analyze your spending habits to spot impulse buys. Consider the benefits of planned meals and reduced food waste.
Understand Financial Peace: Balance needs and wants to enhance your overall well-being.
3. Relationship Management
This is my favorite part to walk people through! Start by getting a handle on your KRAs (key responsibility areas) Identify the roles you play at work, home, and in the community. In these roles, what is your focus or purpose? This helps to define your attachment to the people, and allows you to commit to prioritization and boundaries. Remember, in some places you are replaceable. In others (like home), you simply are not. Judge wisely.
Explore relationships that uplift you versus those that drain your energy. Seriously. Be honest with yourself about this. Where do you feel the most neglected or agitated after interactions? It’s ok to put some distance between yourself and those that make interacting difficult. Think about when you have felt your best in the past few weeks – who was there? What were you up to? When did you experience a positive flow in creativity, productivity, and rejuvenation?
Very few of us experience the highest of highs all the time, so when we are feeling a bit below midline, having the right people around you is critical. One of the reasons why coworking spaces have become such a valuable tool for the growing solopreneur workforce is because they recognize the importance of having a strong support network. Where is yours?
TIME FOR ACTION:
Key Responsibilities: Define your roles at work, home, and in the community to clarify your focus and boundaries.
Energizers vs. Drainers: Assess which relationships uplift you and which drain your energy. Make conscious choices to foster positive interactions.
Build Support Systems: Surround yourself with a network that uplifts you, especially during challenging times.
4. Physical and Mental Spaces
Having safe, organized, effective physical spaces to navigate at work and at home is proven to drive positive results for those inhabiting them. Workplace organization goes far beyond the clear desktop, but research shows the positive impact on physical health (I even picked up some great tips in this article.)
Many years ago, when I was teaching middle schoolers about choices, I invited them to hold their breath while I delivered part of my lesson. So start holding your breath as you read this! The lesson was this: everything that enters your body must exit your body. What we listen to, who we spend time with and have conversations with. What we watch, what we read, what we eat, what we drink. The air we breathe. (Go ahead and exhale already!) The mental spaces we place ourselves in also contribute to what comes from us. I encourage you to make a list of the associations, consumptions, and forms of media that you access. Consider how these environments impact your productivity and well-being.
Humans need an amount of downtime to retreat from other factors — our brains need a reboot. When we step away from the physical and mental spaces, and connect with our innermost selves in peace and, yes, quiet, there is something to be gained. What I’ve learned about compulsive multitaskers is that the work and discipline of singularly focusing on silence is darn near impossible for them. But it’s critical to create a spiritual space for meditation, silence, and stillness in order to refuel the higher level thinking capabilities of your brain. And in those narrow spaces of work and life, there’s something more than intellect, physical health, and financial freedom at stake. Your very being requires an opportunity for the deep exhale.
If taking time to clear space for your soul seems difficult or scary, start with one minute at your desk. Set a timer and turn your chair around, away from your workstation. Place your feet firmly and flatly on the floor, and allow all parts of your body to assume a 90 degree angle- ankles, knees, hips, elbows, chin. Place your hands lightly atop your thighs, and just take some deep breaths in and out. Try to only think about your breathing, and the way that your body feels in this upright and poised position. Spending even one minute in this position can begin to reset some of those stress factors that exist, and give you a chance to have a spiritual connection with your best self!
TIME FOR ACTION:
Organize Your Environment: Create safe, organized spaces at home and work to boost productivity.
Mental Clarity: Reflect on what you consume mentally. Consider how your environment affects your overall health and productivity.
Spiritual Re-connection: Set aside moments for silence and meditation to recharge and enhance your focus.
5. Purposeful Living
Did you catch that line above, the one that makes some people very uncomfortable? “When you live your life according to your values, you get to live the life you deserve.” Reflect on the values that drive you in your work and life. Humans need a clear sense of purpose in life — the motivational core that serves as a compass to guide decisions about time, resources, and space.
I want to encourage you to explore what drives you, and how it shapes those many decisions that must be made on a daily (and hourly) basis. One way to get serious about this process is to identify the behaviors that demonstrate each of your core values — seek to align daily actions with personal and professional goals as they reflect those behaviors.
TIME FOR ACTION:
Identify Your Values: Clarify what drives you in life and work. Align your daily actions with your core values to make decisions more straightforward.
Behavioral Alignment: Reflect on actions that demonstrate your values and seek to integrate them into your everyday life.
Conclusion: Take the Next Step
If you’ve found these insights valuable, consider creating your guide to navigate the complexities of time, money, people, places, and purpose. Sign up for updates on the NarrowSpaces and receive a weekly coaching guide to help you get started.
I invite you to share your feedback and personal stories about your own experiences in navigating these NarrowSpaces of work and life. Let's support each other in creating a balanced and fulfilling life.
Comentários