How a more strict routine gave me a balanced and flexible life

After years of complaining about how little time I had to do what I wanted, I’m now comfortable balancing my personal and professional lives.

It was a constant for me to count the hours per day, do some maths, and conclude that I didn’t have enough time to do everything I wanted. However, it got worse. I felt that I couldn’t do anything besides work, even though I was young and didn’t have other responsibilities.

Not long ago, I managed to approach my schedule differently and improve the use of my time.

Let me share what worked (and didn’t) for me.

My mistake

I love freedom. I love it so much that I used to avoid anything that limited my time and choices. Some examples:

• I always worked at companies with flexible shifts (i.e., I could enter and leave at different times each day)
• I avoided engaging in classes (gym, courses, etc.) and preferred self-training so I could do them whenever I wanted
• I didn’t schedule social activities in advance in case I didn’t feel like doing them when the time arrived.

It took me several years to understand that this behavior was taking my freedom away instead of promoting it.

So, I started to set boundaries for some activities and let others expand in time. I’m detailing here the roadmap I follow when feeling unbalanced:

1 - Track my time

Time is perception. We may feel we lack time but don’t know where it goes. Laura Vanderkam’s book “Off the Clock” helped me tremendously with this. The exercise consists of tracking my time for a period (for example, 2 weeks) to gain awareness about how I use my time.

At the end of this tracking period, I know how many hours per week I put in each bucket. For example:

• Working: 50
• Sleeping: 40
• Eating: 12
• Commuting: 10
• Cooking: 8
• Watching TV: 8
• Training: 3
• Studying: 2
• Etc.

2 - Schedule non-negotiable activities

Here, I’ll list the activities I must do (work, commute, sleep, eat, etc.) and the most important ones I want to do (train, study, hang out, etc.).

By assigning a desired number of hours to each bucket, I’m limiting them from both sides (I want to spend 40 hours working, no more, no less).

For example, I want to sleep 7 hours a day, work 8 hours, and train 4 hours a week. I also want to dedicate 1 hour to dinner every day and take more time on weekends, etc.

With that information, I can schedule those mandatory activities in a weekly calendar, making it easier to visualize.

3 - Add lower-priority activities

The non-negotiable activities work as an anchor in my calendar.

After I have them in front of me, I see the gaps and the time I have to add extra activities.

Then, I fill the gaps with less relevant activities or leave space to do whatever I feel.

I use a Google Calendar because it’s easy to move the boxes around the week. You can use whatever app you like or sketch it on a piece of paper.

I always leave 15 to 30 minutes between activities to handle unexpected events

4 - Follow the plan

The plan should be balanced.

If it is too strict, I won’t follow it. If it is too relaxed, I’ll spend time doing activities I don’t want to do.

However, I need to be aware of the boundaries and move to another activity when the time comes.

That forces me to put the right effort into each task and finish it within the defined period.

General rules

I have 2 main keys for making this plan work:

• Not to overload my week. I can’t do everything. I need to choose my priorities carefully. If I want to learn to swim and play guitar, I must prioritize one and leave the second aside for now.
• Educate myself to disconnect from each activity. I can’t change what I didn’t do. I must live with it if I didn’t work well or study enough. I can do nothing about it when having dinner or preparing to sleep. Just enjoy what I’m doing at the time and look forward to doing it better the next time.