A couple of months ago I wrote a blog post about Finding Balance in Life. In this post, I stated my belief that life balance did not mean giving equal time to all of the aspects or roles in my life. Rather, I said, “My definition of life balance is to give appropriate attention and focus to all the aspects of my life.”
This morning as I was doing my morning routine reading quotes I had highlighted in Readwise, I encountered a quote I had highlighted months ago. It stated exactly what I was trying to say in my post about the definition of balance, but did it better.
The book The Twelve Week Year by Brian Moran and Michael Lennington is an excellent read about the benefits and practicalities of doing our planning in 12-week blocks of time as opposed to 1-year periods. In one section they talk about their goal of intentional imbalance:
If taken literally, the phrase life balance is something of a misnomer. It is natural to think that the goal of life balance is to spend equal time and energy in the various areas of your life, but in reality, that is not practical and it would not necessarily create the life you desire. Trying to spend equal time in each area is unproductive and often frustrating. Life balance is not about equal time in each area; life balance is more about intentional imbalance.
Giving appropriate attention and focus to all the areas in my life means that in my balanced life I will have an intentional imbalance. Some areas will need more attention at times, others less attention. That’s OK. That’s the goal of creating a balanced life.