Schedule Everything

There are tools that can be helpful in maximizing one’s time on a daily basis and balancing each day to use time wisely. Given that I endeavor to squeeze the most out of each day, I schedule everything. I mean everything. Down to the 15-minute mark. Scheduling everything combines self-discipline and time management that helps keep the trains on the tracks each day.

First, I leverage transition/travel time wisely. Car rides are perfect times for calls (using Bluetooth, of course). Airplanes are a great place to knock out projects, presentations, review documents, write recommendation letters, or even hammer out an article like this. The digital messaging tool Slack is also terrific since the end user can
“schedule” (set the hours) he/she is available; as result, I have no guilt about firing off a Slack to colleagues at all hours of the day or night as they won’t “receive” it until they open Slack or enable Slack alerts once again.

I also leverage technology to expedite domestic chores to extract more time for the people and things I love in life. Instead of hand-picking groceries, I use Instacart—and free up my time to give the girls a bath and read them a bedtime story. Dinner on busy nights comes courtesy of Blue Apron, the menu having been customized in their app and arriving in at our doorstep for a DIY, gourmet, homecooked meal.

I’m fortunate, of course. Things would be harder if I didn’t have a supportive husband, and the power to make my own decisions about how to manage my workload. But I believe that episodic balance is something we can all strive for, if we’re disciplined and realistic about how much it’s possible to squeeze into any given day, week, month, year.

For me, the key is to have episodic balance. That means it really is possible to “have it all”— just not all at once. A true work/life balance can happen when you make clear-eyed decisions about what matters to you, and understand that both at work and at home, success comes one day, one hour, or one activity at a time, by committing fully to the moment.