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TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR TIME - INTERNET TIME & PERSONAL TIME

As a mobile professional, sometimes I find it hard to find a balance between work time and family time. When it's late at night in my time zone, the business day is just beginning for many of my clients across the world. With a growing client base, I want to keep all of my clients happy by giving them excellent customer service and returning their email around the clock BUT I also want to keep my family happy by spending quality time with them.
I used to think that I could accomplish both goals by doing work, while spending time with my family. For example, we would rent a movie to watch at home and I would answer email on my notebook computer while "watching" the movie with the family. If you are able to concentrate on a movie while reading/answering email at the same time, then you are a better person than I am. At the end of the movie, I would find myself wondering what happened.

Taking work (on my notebook computer) to my son's soccer games, would result in my missing the key plays. Or bringing work to family functions, would always result in me spending more time with clients half way across the world, then with the rest of the family who were right in front of me at the time.

REALITY CHECK: Being there isn't really being there if your mind is half way around the world chatting with clients online in real time, or answering email from clients.

I've even visited friends in other states, and brought along my notebook computer thinking I could spend quality time with my friends AND get work accomplished at the same time. Unless you have friends in the Internet business, they may not understand why you brought your work along... after all, you flew into town to spend time with them.

During one trip to visit friends who recently had a baby, I figured that I could answer email during the hour long drive from Denver to Colorado Springs, but I found that my silence while concentrating on the email was bordering on rude, considering my friend had driven one hour one way to pick me up from the airport, and we were now driving an hour back to his home. So I put away my notebook and decided to wait until I had the opportunity to work at a later time.

If you're busy like I am, the email tends to pile up and when the email piles up, I tend to feel stressed. Thus by answering emails throughout the day, and addressing any customer service issues that come up, I keep myself free of stress and keep my clients happy.

Because I decided not to work during the waking hours and only work while my friends went to sleep, I felt stressed out during the first day of my visit (because I did not go online all day), and fatigued on my second day of my visit, due to lack of sleep from staying up late working while everyone else was asleep. Needless to say, this was not a relaxing visit.
THE PROBLEM: Balancing time between family, friends, and work.

THE SOLUTION: Plan your time, then share your plan with your family & friends. Since you have a computer, chances are you have some sort of scheduler program to remind you of appointments and important dates. Use your scheduler program on a daily basis to literally block out time for your family, friends & work. By blocking out time, you will get a visual reminder that there are only 24 hours in any given day, and only then will you be able to take control of your day, instead of letting the day take control of you.

Once you have finished planning your time, print out your plan for the day, and post it where your family can see it.

For example, here is my plan for Monday:

12am-8am SLEEP
8am-9am EXCERCISE
9am-10am GET READY FOR WORK
10am-11am BREAKFAST & DRIVE TO OFFICE
11am-5pm WORK AT OFFICE
5pm-6pm CLEAR OFF DESK, PACK UP & DRIVE HOME
6pm-7pm DINNER WITH FAMILY
7pm-9pm SPEND QUALITY TIME WITH KIDS & TAKE THEM TO VIDEO GAME ARCADE
9pm-10pm GO ONLINE, ANSWER EMAIL & HANDLE CUSTOMER SUPPORT/SERVICE
10pm-12am WATCH MOVIE WITH WIFE

By sharing my plan and posting it for the family to see, my children will look forward to going to the arcade with me after dinner, and my wife will look forward to watching a movie with me after the kids have gone to bed. Failure to keep to this plan on Monday means that I would let someone down (either myself, my kids, my wife, or my clients), so failure is not an option.

The next time I visit my friends in Colorado Springs, my schedule may look like the following:
1pm-2pm ARRIVE & PICK UP LUGGAGE AT BAGGAGE CLAIM
2pm-3pm DRIVE FROM DENVER TO COLORADO SPRINGS - CONVERSATION TIME
3pm-4pm GO ONLINE & WORK
4pm-6pm VISIT WITH FRIENDS 6pm-8pm DINNER WITH FRIENDS 8pm-9pm GO ONLINE & WORK
9pm-2am GO OUT WITH FRIENDS
2am-3am GO ONLINE & WORK
3am-?? SLEEP

By sharing the above plan with my friends, they can see ahead of time that I will be going online to get work done at certain times of the day/night, and that I have blocked out plenty of time to visit, go out to dinner, etc.

BOTTOM LINE: When you take a two day road trip, chances are you pull out a map and plan your trip.

When you decide to get married, you plan the wedding, the reception, and the honeymoon.

If these events require advanced planning on your part, doesn't it make sense that you should take the time to plan out something as important as your life? Plan your day, your week, your month, your year. By blocking out time as noted above, you will take control of your day instead of letting your day take control of you. You will be in control of your life, instead of wondering what's going to happen next. As a result of being in control of your life, your personal relationships and your business will flourish.

Remember that it is never too late to start planning your time. Maybe you wasted your day yesterday. Maybe you wasted your entire year up until yesterday. Just because you made a mistake yesterday, doesn't mean that you have to make the same mistake today. Just because you wasted your time yesterday, doesn't mean that you have to waste your time today.