How to hang up

How much time do you spend on long phone calls with people who drain you? Do certain people in the office soak up a lot of your time, with little impact or result?

It might be a clingy acquaintance, a family member, an annoying colleague or a mum from school. It's often someone who has a lot more time on his or her hands than you do.

How do you extricate yourself from this scenario? Someone I know makes wild gestures to her husband that are a signal for him to ring the doorbell if a phone conversation is getting out of hand - a fabricated circuit breaker.

Many of us have little time to achieve everything on our lists, let alone save time for ourselves. We need to be skilled at protecting our boundaries.

Start today

Become better at ending conversations tactfully. If a phone call or face-to-face chat starts meandering when you have better things to do, simply say, 'What can I do for you?'

It's polite, helpful, cuts to the chase and sits more comfortably than making up an excuse.

What matters most?

Our thought and hearts were in Queensland this week - watching the loss of life, homes and businesses was heartbreaking.

I'm from Canberra, and as a city we know only too well after our devastating firestorm of 2003 how quickly you can lose everything in a natural disaster. We also know well the generosity of human spirit in this country.

I've never experienced a flood but, when our fires hit, I recall my daughter piling the barbie dolls up in the lounge room, in case we had to evacuate. I also recall thinking that our precious items were spread throughout the house, and that I'd have little hope of mustering them all in a hurry.

When the reality of evacuation is before us, our perspective on what really matters sharpens dramatically.

Start today

The disaster in Queensland provides an opportunity for us to give our money, time and muscle if we're close and clothes and other items for those in need.

If you happen to be going through your cupboards (though charities plead for cash donations at this stage), be thankful for what you have and take the opportunity to make an inventory of which personal possessions matter most to you - while you have the luxury of time to think.

Take an idea and run with it

There's a great scene in the movie 'The Social Network', when Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg gets the idea to include a 'relationship status' feature on the site, so people who are scared to ask will know whether someone is available or not.

It's the 'missing piece' in his concept for an online social network - the last thing he adds before the site goes live for the first time.

When the idea occurs to him in a Harvard bar during a casual conversation, he doesn't file it away for later, or add it to his mental 'to do' list. He stops talking mid-conversation, drops his beer and runs at top speed through the dark campus, tearing through the halls and bursting into his dorm, where he adds the feature immediately and hits the 'go live' button.

Start today

Do you ever have a good idea that gets 'overtaken by events'? Do you let your ideas pass by without acting on them, only to see someone else achieve a similar thing?

Zuckerberg didn't create a $50 billion website by keeping a 'mental to-do list'.

Drop everything, run with your idea and 'go live'.

Top 10 tips for life balance in 2011

1. Have a reason to leave

Just as it’s easy to expand into a higher income, work can morph into the available hours. If you consistently amaze yourself at how late it is when you leave the office, it may be that you made no solid plans for after hours.

Having somewhere else to be sharpens your efficiency and helps you pull the plug on work. It’s harder to ‘just do one more thing’ when you’re coaching your daughter’s soccer team at 6pm, or you’re enrolled in a Zumba class or meeting a friend for dinner.

2. Stop colouring-in the title page

Swamped by more work than it’s humanly possible to plough through? Acknowledge that you can’t do it all and need to make choices.

Ask yourself ‘Am I colouring-in the title page here, or doing the actual assignment?’ Ditch the 80% of time-wasting distractions that bring you 20% of results and focus instead on the 20% of tasks that deliver 80% of your results. If the purpose of a task isn’t clear, there’s a good chance you’re wasting your time doing it.

3. Ignore the shiny things

Trying to focus against a barrage of phone calls, texts and emails in open plan offices swells the time it takes to complete jobs. Control what you can. Learn the power of ‘single-tasking’: turn your phone off and close email down for an hour if you really want to make progress and get to your after-hours activity on time.

4. Say ‘no’ and ‘not now’

Do you accept every task you’re given, even if it pushes your workload over the edge? Managers aren’t mind-readers. They may not know what’s on our plates unless we tell them. Ask about the purpose of the new task and decide if it’s more important than other jobs you’re doing. Don’t be afraid to negotiate a new deadline or delegate tasks to others if appropriate.

5. Ask for help

If you’re playing the martyr, the control freak or the ‘best person for the job’, you’re probably doing too much. Contrary to what we sometimes like to believe about ourselves, the entire office won’t fall apart if we step away. A study found that there are more than 250 ways to wash dishes, all of which achieve the same result. If you’ve already done enough, let someone else do it their way while you take a break.

6. De-clutter your diary

How much ‘white space’ is in your diary? Block out regular chunks of time for no fixed purpose and experience the gift of breathing space. Correctly estimate the time it will take to get from A to B and build in a buffer to move between commitments in a stress-free way.

7. Switch channels

If you’ve spent all day focussing mentally, de-stress by ‘switching channels’ to a physical activity or escape with some light reading or a movie. If you don’t change the channel, it’s harder to switch off and get to sleep, which leads to higher stress and burnout.

8. Let things go (don’t sweat the small stuff)

Think about the last twelve months. How much energy did you invest worrying about things that didn’t matter? Whether it’s office politics or cleaning obsessively before your mother-in-law visits, we waste a lot of time dwelling on matters that could otherwise ‘go through to the keeper’. Invest that energy positively, towards the things you want to achieve.

9. Get out of your own way

It’s human nature to want to blame other people for the imbalance in our lives, but how do you hold yourself back? Do you think you’re not good enough? Are you over-compensating for this? Are you on a quest for perfection? Do you avoid delegation in different parts of your life due to Nobody-does-this-as-well-as-I-do Syndrome? Become your best ally, instead of your own worst enemy.

10. Lock in a holiday

Open up your 2011 diary. What are you doing in September?

Ask for the time off when you get back to work. Open a new bank account and set up a fortnightly transfer. Visit the travel agent and make a booking.

Most people fail to take holidays because they ‘don’t have time’ and ‘can’t afford it’. Those who do go away have usually planned for the trip well in advance. If you don’t start thinking about a holiday until later in the year, there won’t be a spare weekend left when you get there, work commitments will be immovable and there’ll be no savings in the account.

If you want things to be different in 2011, become the architect of your own lifestyle and they will be.

One door closes...

I don’t do ends of eras well.

My baby finishes primary school today. Not the new baby who is gurgling in the pram beside me as I write this, but his twelve-year-old sister – who was his age yesterday and is now a gangly pre-teen who fills me with joy and frustration in almost equal measure.

I’ve had about six cups of tea today and they haven’t taken the edge off the train smash that I am at the thought of flying past this milestone. I fuel my instability with a tortuous glance at her kindergarten photo – the one we took on her first day, of me crouching down at her level, holding her hands, staring lovingly into her anxious little face and willing her to be confident.

Whatever I did that day, it worked. Not immediately, mind – she was barnacled to my ankle at every morning drop-off for the first five weeks and, at the time, I thought it would never end.

Now it’s me – barnacled to her ankle, as I watch her race past me and clatter the front door behind her, despite my telling her every morning not to slam it. Racing past me full stop.

She’s clutching an old school polo shirt and a heap of textas for everyone to graffiti their names on it today. The music she’s listening to is awful. She looks at me like I came down last week in the Queanbeyan flood. The bathroom reeks of way too much hair-removal cream, after I let her use it for the first time for tonight’s farewell disco, despite her being far too young (ie. exactly the same age that I was when I first shaved my legs, but that was different! I felt much older than she looks!)

I thought it would never end, and now it has.

‘I can’t believe it’s her last day of primary school,’ I sob, when my husband asks me what’s wrong.

‘Oh well,’ he replies. ‘She’ll start high school next year.’

I look at him incredulously – carrying our seven-week-old baby, who he’s just changed, fed and burped, as well as cup of tea that he’s made for me – and wonder how he could have gone so far wrong with that comment.

It occurs to me that this was perhaps not, in hindsight, the best week to choose to wean the baby. That particular horse has, however, well and truly bolted, and there must be a way of riding this roller-coaster without re-lactating.

I have a flashback to my own final day of primary school. The big party we had at Anna Green’s house. The kissing competition...

Right! That’s it! I need a distraction, and I need one fast. It’s times like this that you need the soothing fluffiness of ABBA, and what could be more harmless than watching Mamma Mia on DVD?

An hour later, I’m submerged in a swamp of used tissues and empty chocolate wrappers, with Meryl Streep’s Slipping Through my Fingers on continuous loop.

I realise I have precisely an hour and fifteen minutes to pull myself together before my daughter gets home, takes one look at me and accuses me of being a weirdo/freak/loser etc before instructing me not to be embarrassing at the presentation evening (at which, I kid you not, they are showing a slide-show of their school journey, set to music).

I rifle through the letter box, hoping to find a Round Robin Christmas letter but finding instead a letter from the high school she’s going to. Dare I open it?

It’s addressed to the 2011 Year Seven parents and outlines what will happen in the first week of school. As I read through it, I find it strangely comforting. The list of stationery requirements includes coloured pencils. Sounds positively kindergartenish. It says they’ll take all students to the buses on the first day, whether they’re catching the bus that day or not, just so they become familiar with their bus. How reassuringly hand-holding-ish.

By the time she gets home I realise she’s still a little fish - about to be thrown into a big pond, and the journey is far from over. We’re only half way there...

Schoolbag in hand, she leaves home in the early morning, waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile... I’m glad whenever I can share her laughter, that funny little girl.

Holiday survival plan!

With six weeks of holidays looming, I suggested to my daughters (who are 12 and 10) that we not spend the entire period hunched over the TV and glued to various varieties of social networking.

We're developing a plan together, involving a mix of activities and a set budget. The plan includes:


• A small range of daily chores

• A daily walk

• Two planned 'outings' each week (one must be free)

• One friend over (or vice versa) each week

• Re-joining the local library and visiting each week

• Visiting the craft superstore and each starting a long-term project

• Working our way through the Junior MasterChef cookbook

We might not stick to it without fail, and there will be daily screen time, too, but we're looking forward to giving it a go.

It has been a pleasure getting to know many of you this year. We're taking a break until 4 January and will return with fresh ideas on how to 'have it all' in 2011.

In the meantime, if you're in the mood to overhaul the way you do things next year, feel free to check out our downloadable self-paced 'Life Balance Program'. Between now and 4 January, we've reduced the price of the eBook from $39.95 to just $16.95 as a New Year Special.

Wishing you all the best for a beautiful Christmas and a happy and balanced year ahead.

Do I walk my talk?

I was asked this week whether I feel under pressure to live up to my own advice, and thought it was a really useful question to answer.

I do feel responsible for 'walking the talk', but this is certainly not the same as saying that I get it right all the time.

I've got the perfect excuse to create balance in my life, because it's my business 'brand'. A friend of mine runs a fitness business, and I remember her saying that she has to be seen by others to be staying fit and eating well. In my case, thankfully I don't have this pressure, and can eat all the chocolate I want! :-)

What I need to be seen to be doing is making 'me time' and 'family and friend' time outside work, to balance my commitments and to reduce stress in my life so that I can make the most of each aspect of it. It's an enjoyable 'brand' to strive for.

Are things blissful all the time? Of course not!

Working from home with kids of all ages (my husband's children are 20 and 17, my two are 12 and 10 and our baby is nearly 6 weeks old), I've got the perfect family to make running a business a huge challenge! There are moments when it all comes crashing down and I feel like out-classing a toddler in the tanty department, times when I cry and times when I feel like a failure. When this happens, I sometimes ask myself whether I'm in the right game...

What leads me to think that I am, is that these 'falling in a heap' moments happen much less frequently than they used to. A few years ago, I regularly over-committed myself and was often at wits' end (a situation that led to my book, Wits' End Before Breakfast! Confessions of a Working Mum')

I used to be the cause of most of my problems in this area and I'm now the cause of most of my success. I know my own limits, and rarely exceed them. I know the lifestyle I want (in terms of how the time is divided), and I carve it out thoughtfully. I know when to say 'no', how to say it and who to say it to, whether this means knocking back a work demand, a cool opportunity or a child.

If I've learned a lot about 'having it all' (and I'm still learning) , it hasn't been from self-help books or 'gurus' but through making a lot of mistakes. I had too much on my plate, dropped it, lost it and gradually found it again.

I'm very careful, these days, with the things that matter most to me, and I see my role as providing others with the short cuts I wish I'd known earlier.

So, in answer to the question - yes, there is some pressure to live up to my own advice, but the rewards are great when I do!