Life Symmetry

I was talking to people this week about their work life balance, what that means and how to manage it best. Life is made up of many different facets – it’s not just about work and life. Work is part of your life.

I think sometimes people are striving too hard for something they think they want but actually sometimes they’ve got what they want all along and they just need to take a different look at it. There are two ways of looking at this. First take a look at the Life Wheel and think about how it would look if you had more money than you needed. Plenty to pay the bills and enough left over for holidays,treats and to live exactly as you wanted.

Now take a different colour and redo the wheel but this time think how it would look if you only had enough money to pay your bills. How would this affect each area of your life now? Take a look at both wheels and see what changes. Which areas are affected by the amount of money you have and which aren’t?

Look at the important things in your life, family, friends, relationships, your health and make sure that you make the most of what you’ve got. How symmetrical is your wheel? What would it take to make each area of your life a 10/10. Plan in time for the important things first, those things that if you had no money would still be there and would still be important.

Don’t forget to include yourself in there too. After all, you’re the most important person and you need to take care of yourself. Make sure that you take time out every day – even if it’s just for a few minutes and treat yourself at least once a week.

How Are You?

“I’m FINE”.

Another definition of ‘fine’ as heard recently in the new version of the Italian Job – Freaked-out Insecure Neurotic and Emotional or perhaps more accurately Feelings Inside Not Expressed.

How often do you hear that, when actually the person saying it isn’t FINE at all? Either they’re doing that …”can’t you see I’m not really fine, but I’m not going to say, I just expect you to guess what’s wrong” or they just don’t want to discuss it - Feelings Inside Not Expressed.

Sometimes it can be difficult to actually say how we’re feeling – especially to those we care about. We don’t want them to worry or feel that we’re moaning but what’s your response when someone asks "How are you?" Do you respond with the standard – "fine thank" you or do you then regale them with your list of problems, ailments and issues or something in-between.

When someone says “I’m fine” to you and you know they’re not really, what do you do? How do you coax the real answer from them or do you just ignore it and not want to get involved?

After all, if people were really interested in ‘how you are’ – surely they’d want an honest answer? Equally, if you were really interested in them, you'd want to know. Obviously the type of relationship you have with the person asking or answering the question is going to have a bearing on how much you reveal but why not improve your communication and ask for or give support if it's needed.

So, this week - when you give or receive the standard response - improve your listening skills and communicate in a more open and honest way.

A Cautionary Tale

It’s one of those things you always promise yourself and quite often it’s something that gets forgotten or put on the ‘do it next week list’. The reason I wasn’t able to post a MAD Moment last week, was because my computer died.

The hard drive just went and despite my best attempts at all the usual things, it couldn’t be recovered. Even after a couple of days with the local PC repair experts it was beyond recovery and although I did get my laptop back, it had a new hard disk installed so was missing everything else, except the operating system, Office and the ability to at least connect to the Internet.

Fortunately, I had a backup of the data - unfortunately it's only from mid May, so I've lost a few weeks work ... but better than nothing. I've also got the entire C: drive backed up from the beginning of the year - again not current but better than having nothing at all.

This week it’s a reminder and gentle warning for you. If you lost your computer - what would the impact be to you and your business? Think about it - how would you function? What would you need to keep going?

• Make sure you backup your data regularly - not just the documents you use but also your mail files, calendar etc.
• Sync up with a PDA/Blackberry/Mobile Phone - for your calendar, contacts and email.
• Have an online mail system - at least you can temporarily access your email. Most local libraries offer free internet access.
• Keep a note of userids/pswds somewhere - in coded form obviously.

It's an ideal opportunity to declutter the hard disk and get rid of all those programmes you rarely use but I don't recommend it.

The older your computer is - the more likely it is to happen. Of course, we all know we should take regular back-ups but how many of us actually do?

Don't get caught out - take that backup today!