In this episode, Brian unveils the Gladiator Life Balance Blueprint, the piece of the puzzle you’ve been missing. The 5-Pointed Star represents your balance, and you’ll want to plan how brightly your star GLOWS - Growth, Love and relationships, Others, Work, and Self (GLOWS). Brian provides a full collection of practical tips advice on implementing this blueprint as well. You’ll want to dive into these, whether you're deeply struggling with life balance or simply looking for a few ways to tune yours up.

The Audio/Podcast

Links to References In This Episode

• Author: Victor Frankl. — Title: Man’s Search For Meaning

• Training for yourself individually that you can begin right now through the Productivity Gladiator Signature Membership

• Training for your team at work:

  • The full curriculum as a part of The Productivity Gladiator Masterclass

  • One-off workshops to level up the team’s productivity in one area.

Episode Digest

The Gladiator Life Balance Blueprint: Architecting Your Best Work-Life Balance

In today's fast-paced world, achieving a healthy work-life balance can seem like an elusive goal. Many of us find ourselves constantly juggling various responsibilities, often feeling overwhelmed and unfulfilled. However, there's a powerful tool that can help you take control of your life and create the balance you've been seeking: the Gladiator Life Balance Blueprint.

This comprehensive approach is built on the shape of a star. Your job is to remember that balance is based on how brightly your life GLOWS:

1. Growth

2. Love and relationships

3. Others (something bigger than you)

4. Work

5. Self

By focusing on these five areas, you can create a well-rounded, fulfilling life that aligns with your values and goals.

Let's break down each category and explore how you can implement them in your life:

Growth

This category encompasses all the ways you're trying to grow and evolve as a person, both personally and professionally. Challenge yourself to have an equal number of personal and professional growth goals. Examples might include learning a new language, taking dance classes, or exploring new places in your town.

Love and Relationships

This category covers three main areas: love life, friends, and family. It's crucial to nurture these relationships regularly. A key insight is that at least two of these areas should involve in-person interactions each week. Virtual connections are valuable but should be supplemented with occasional face-to-face meetings.

Others (Something Bigger Than You)

This category focuses on activities where the primary beneficiary is someone other than yourself, AND you're not doing it for money. Examples include volunteering, coaching a community sports team, or contributing to a cause you care about. These activities help you connect with your community and give your life a sense of purpose beyond yourself, which is a huge leveling agent in your feelings of balance.

Work

While work is an important part of life, it's just one piece of the puzzle. In this category, focus on two to three significant career goals you're working towards, rather than day-to-day tasks. These should be ways you're growing and evolving in your professional life, and should not be things that already appear in your job description.

Self

This category is all about taking care of of YOU, personally. It includes physical aspects (sleep, fitness, diet), mental well-being (meditation, journaling, downtime), spiritual needs, and fun activities or hobbies that bring you joy.

Implementing Your Blueprint

Creating your blueprint is just the first step. The real magic happens when you put it into action. Here's how to implement your Gladiator Life Balance Blueprint:

1. Plan your week in advance. Aim to do this on Thursday afternoons, looking ahead at the next 10 days.

2. For each item in your categories, identify the "one next thing" you can do this week to move forward.

3. Block time on your calendar for at least one item from each category every week.

4. Review and adjust your blueprint regularly. It's a living document that should evolve with you.

5. Focus on progress, not perfection. Celebrate your accomplishments along the way.

6. If you're feeling overwhelmed, look for ways to combine activities that fulfill multiple categories.

Remember, this blueprint is about importance, not the number of hours spent on each category. It's about making your journey fulfilling, not just reaching end goals.

Key Takeaways and Notable Quotes

1. "90% of your life is the journey. This exercise sets you up to enjoy the journey along the way."

2. "Mental health is based on a certain degree of tension... the gap between what one is and what one should become." - Viktor Frankl

3. Compete with yourself, not others. Focus on your own growth and progress. Social Media WILL NOT provide a fair comparison.

4. Don't overbook yourself. If necessary, look for activities that fulfill multiple categories simultaneously.

5. "Everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth." - Mike Tyson. Life will throw curveballs, but the key is to keep planning and getting back on track.

6. This blueprint works for all stages of life, with minor modifications for students or retirees.

7. Having a demanding job is not an excuse to neglect other areas of your life. Start each week with a plan to hit all categories.

8. If a category feels empty, do some soul-searching to find ways to fulfill it.

9. Your blueprint should have contain enough across all categories to feel pushed each week, but still be achievable.

10. Your categories and goals can evolve over time. Don't be afraid to adjust your blueprint as your life changes.

Remember, the goal is not to achieve perfect balance every day or week, but to ensure that you're nurturing all important aspects of your life regularly. This approach allows for flexibility while keeping you accountable to your overall life goals.

As you implement this blueprint, be patient with yourself. It may take time to find the right balance for you, and that balance may shift as your life circumstances change. The key is to stay conscious of all five areas and make consistent efforts to nurture each one.

So, are you ready to become the architect of your best work-life balance? Start creating your Gladiator Life Balance Blueprint today, and take the first step towards a more fulfilling, well-rounded life.

Why Subscribe To The Email List: Brian shares the most with his email subscribers and even connects directly from time to time. Sign up to get the most from Productivity Gladiator!

About The Creator/Host: I’m Brian. At age 4, I was diagnosed with insulin dependent (type 1) diabetes and told that my life was going to be 10-20 years shorter than everyone else. As a kid I took time for granted, but now as an adult, time is the most precious thing that I have. After spending a career hands-on in the trenches as a senior project manager, I now help others to level-up through my Productivity Gladiator training. Graduates of Productivity Gladiator training wield time management & life balance superpowers, activate a laser-guided ability to focus & prioritize, and implement a sniper-precise approach to task & email management. If what you’ve seen or heard here intrigues you, reach out, let’s chat! Time is the currency of your life, spend it wisely.

Transcript

Brian Nelson-Palmer (00:41.134)

I'm Brian Nelson-Palmer Palmer. On this show, I talk about personal, practical, productivity skills. And This is a Knowledge Drop episode. I'm actually revealing the Gladiator Life Balance Blueprint. This is the outline that you've been missing to architect your best work -life balance. Here's the outline of how it's gonna go. I'm gonna talk about the background. We'll talk about what is good life balance.

Then I have an exercise we're going to do together where you're going to get started right now building your plan, your blueprint. Then we'll talk about the implementation plan of how you implement this. And I'll talk about important notes and lessons learned for you, for your journey with using this tool. So let's jump back. Jumping right in, This is the background on where this comes from. I started working on this back in 2014.

And COVID happened in 2020, and this topic really went bananas. So I was actually really honored and happy to have an answer to help the folks who needed it during COVID. And All those lessons still apply to this day, and it's only gotten better and better. and the advice and the tips and the thoughts and the tool itself, the blueprint, has only gotten better and better. So I'm about solutions, right? This isn't about the research.

It used to drive me crazy during COVID when everybody presented research that said that work -life balance was struggling. or that kind of thing. Like If you're having an issue with this, Chances are if you're listening to this, you already know that your own work -life balance is a challenge. You don't need me to tell you how big of an issue this is. Let's fix it for you. So my question was, how can I make this actionable? And that is this plan. That's why I'm calling it a blueprint, because This is...

a game changer for you. It is the blueprint that you've needed for your life balance. Also on that topic, we're going to call this life balance. I don't just call this work life balance because there's actually five categories that make up your blueprint. Work is just one of those. So if any of those categories are missing, you're going to feel out of balance a little bit. And it's

Brian Nelson-Palmer (03:02.062)

not just balance between work and life, though work is certainly part of it. So here's a quick story. I remember a woman, Diane, she came to my training and basically her life, she just worked, then went home, made some dinner, watched some TV and went to bed. The next day was rinse and repeat. And she was basically just lived weekend to weekend. And even the weekends were short and tough because she was always playing catch up.

from the work week. So three months after taking my training, I ran into her and she was a whole new woman. It was amazing. She started getting together with friends every Wednesday night after the training and this blueprint. And she ended up joining a trivia league. Turns out she's a trivia person and she found out a way to work in time to start exercising and lost some weight too.

She had more energy than she ever did before. She even met somebody at trivia night a couple of weeks before I ran into her and she'd actually been dating for the first time in a while, which is something that she'd never had time for in the past. So guys, Diane had a whole new glow about her and it's your turn to start that transformation. So let's get you started right now, right here today. So What is good life balance? There are five points to it.

I want you to picture your life as a five -pointed star. And now, picture your star as a five -legged star -shaped table. That's how I want to describe balance. And Each of the points of the star represents a critical and necessary part of your life in good life balance. Now, why is it a star? Picture...

a star -shaped table. Close your eyes, picture a star -shaped table in your head. Now, imagine if one leg would fall over, if one leg would fall off or get damaged or somehow have a bad week or a bad month, that table would still stand up because that is what good work -life balance looks like.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (05:15.79)

If your table only had one or maybe two legs, like Diane, I mentioned she only did some stuff for herself and went to work and that was pretty much it. That was more like a two legged table. And of course a two legged table isn't going to stand up or balance very well. So when we talk about balance, five legs is how we achieve that balance. That's why it's five points. And.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (05:41.774)

I want you how brightly your star glows. G -L -O -W -S is the acronym. for what those five stars are. So here you go. It's G for growth. How are you growing and evolving each week? Then there's L for love and relationships. This is family, friends, your love life. O is for others. This is something bigger than you.

Others are the primary beneficiary of these things. So you don't do these things for money in the "O" category. And then S is for self. This is for your personal needs and your personal benefits. Sleep, diet, fitness, spiritual, me time. Those are the types of things in self. So we're going to go more into those in the actual exercise. That's your overview. Now let's make it actionable. And I want you.

to try this. If you're like me, you just listen to podcasts or you watch YouTube videos passively. Yeah, what's going on? You hear what they say. But now I actually want you to be active and participate while I go over this. So writing things down helps set them in your memory. And sometimes you have to see and hear things seven different ways before it actually registers in your brain and you'll make a change.

So I'm asking you to do this, not just listen to this. So pause this episode if you need, while either you pull up a note in your phone, you can do this in your phone, or find a pen and a piece of paper right now. But I want you to write down these five headings. Call it the Gladiator Life Balance Blueprint. And I want you to write down these five categories as I talk about them and fill them in. So the first category, write down Growth.

And then underneath it, I want you to write down all the ways that come to mind that you're trying to grow or evolve as a person. Challenge yourself to have just as many ways that you're trying to grow personally as you do professionally. What are you learning? How are you growing? How are you trying to evolve currently? So here's some examples. Are you interested in learning Spanish? Do you want to learn to dance?

Brian Nelson-Palmer (08:04.206)

Are you going somewhere new around town that you've been wanting to try? Are you stepping outside your comfort zone? Like maybe you're going to an improv class or something. So feel free to pause this episode, pause this while you're listening to it or watching it and continue marking down your notes for this category. And once you're done, look down at that list. And I want you to make sure you have as many bullets that are for your personal growth.

as well as you do for your professional growth. So many times people who start to feel unbalanced are only growing at work. That is the only place that they grow. Everything else is static and nowhere else. So that's why you need to grow personally too. So I want you to have challenge yourself, put as many bullets down of ways that you wanna grow personally and professionally.

Pause if you need to, and then we'll keep going. Next up, I want you to write down love and relationships. That's your next category. And underneath that heading, I want you to write down love. And what goes under your love life? Maybe this is date night. So for an example, if you're single, maybe this means leaving a night open for a date. If you're single and would like to date or be involved with someone, for your love life.

If you're in a relationship, maybe that means you write down date night. Maybe you schedule a date with your partner and you write down anything else that you would want to do with your partner and for your love life and write that down. Anything to feed your love life. Next, write down friends under love and relationships. And I want you to keep it on your radar that you need time with your friends. And then last up, I want you to write down.

family. When will you see yours? That's what we're talking about. And last up, write down anything else that generally comes to mind under the topic of love and relationships. Those three are the three main ones, but if there's anything else that comes up for you, this is where you'll put it. Now the next category is, I want you to write down others bigger than you. That's the name of the category. Now,

Brian Nelson-Palmer (10:21.806)

This is something that you support with your own time and effort. What are you doing to contribute toward your community? Something for others bigger than you. Do you do volunteer work? Is it a good cause that you work for? There's two keys to the things that go in this category. First, the primary benefactor of your work is someone other than you. That's why we call it others.

This is why we started the category with that name. So it benefits someone other than you, and it's not for money. If you make money doing this thing, it's not for others. So examples, for me personally, I volunteer with Big Brother Big Sister. So I spend time with my little brother two to three times per month. I volunteer doing that. Also, I volunteer with the Wammies, which is the Washington DC area Grammys. I contribute toward that program. So,

for you, this could be volunteering with your church or it could even be creating and coaching, creating and coaching a social sports team, like maybe a softball team or a trivia team or something. As long as the other people are the clear primary beneficiary of your actions and that's what you're getting and that's what you're driving at with this effort. That's the things that go under others, something bigger than you.

Feel free to pause if you need to while you're writing notes down. And then next up, we're moving on. Next category, write down Work.

Then write down two to three things that you're working toward in your career. Think about big goals. Nothing in your day -to -day work gets written in here. So whatever it is should be a way you're growing and evolving. This should not be anything that's a normal job function or something that's listed on your job description wouldn't be in here. So examples, this could be a new certification you're working toward or a goal that you're you're leaning.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (12:27.406)

leading your leading your team toward, we're not gonna spend too much time here because like I said before, people interested in this topic, this life balance topic, If you saw this episode title and you were interested, it's likely because you don't, it's not because you life too much, it's because you probably work too much. So that's how you end up stuck in this area and why you seek out things like this. So we're not gonna talk too much about work, but there is a category for work and jot down.

two to three things that you're trying to achieve. Goals, bigger picture things.

Next up in your last category, we talked about GLOWS, right? G for growth, L for love and relationships, O for others, W for work, and the last one is self. Write down SELF as your fifth category. And underneath, I want you to write down the word physical. And under here, you can put sleep, fitness, diet, and anything else that's for your physical self.

That helps your physical self. So examples, maybe do you need your bedtime on the calendar? Do you need more sleep? I do. That's actually how I get my sleep is I put my bedtime on my calendar. That sounds crazy, but that's the way if I know that I'm shooting for seven hours, I need to look ahead and think, when am I going to bed and when am I getting up? How many hours do you need of the sleep? Write that down. Also write down diet and fitness. Where are you trying to get to with those?

Because for most people, sleep, fitness, and diet are the three things that fall off the fastest whenever they're working towards something or they're caught up. Next up, write down mental. Meditation, Meditation, wellness stuff, this could be journaling, this could be definitely write down. Under mental, write me time and downtime. For me, for this one, after doing this drill over time, I now know that I need one weekday night.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (14:29.262)

and one portion of morning and afternoon or an evening, one portion of a weekend day as me time. And when I say that, that means no talking. That means no computers, no phones. Sometimes I watch TV or read a good book, but it is me time. And I didn't know that starting out when I started this drill, but now that I've been paying attention to it, I now know that on a weekly basis, if I get those, that's the me time that I need. So you're tracking it now. Next, write down spiritual.

And anything that goes with that, maybe this is religious needs or going to church. If spiritual is important to you, put it under self and jot down what you're looking for there. And then last up, write down fun and interests. These are things that are not for money again, right? These are for yourself. Maybe these are hobbies like I've got a buddy that builds those big, massive Lego kits. And my wife works puzzles for me. This is boat time.

I am a boat guy. I love being out on the water. So I want you to write down under your fun and interests, what goes under self? What do you need for yourself?

Those are your five categories. That's the beginning of your blueprint. Feel free to pause if you're still jotting notes down. And now let's talk about implementation. So next up is the implementation. How do you implement your plan? And what you do is you plan your next week in advance. And here's the way that this works. I want you to go back and look at your categories. And I want you to identify your one next thing for each of the items you wrote down under each of the categories.

Most of the things you wrote down will likely be big things. So look at your list and break each one down to just the one next thing that you could accomplish this week that would move you one step forward to this thing. Even if it's a super small step toward that goal, what would it be? Like, for example, if learn Spanish is the growth item that I mentioned earlier, maybe I write down, take one Duolingo lesson per day.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (16:35.694)

or whatever your app is, Babbel, or one of the learning lessons. Now next, so you've, pause if you need to, you're writing down the one next thing for each of the items. And next, you're gonna plan your upcoming week in advance. You're gonna look at the upcoming week and you're gonna block time for each one that you can and write at least one on your calendar from each category. That's your goal initially.

So for the first week, just make sure you have one from each of your categories. That's your five stars, your five legged table that we talked about that star. I want one leg on the ground for each of those in your.

life balance blueprint and in your calendar one from each category then over time now that's just one and the goal for if you're new to this maybe it's just making sure you check each of those categories make sure you've got one for each of those things in in the upcoming week and then continue to adapt in the future weeks so for example my quadrants have changed

over time. time. What I wrote down years ago is not the same one that it lives that happens today. My blueprint is a living document and it keeps living and I want yours to be too. So what you wrote down right now, this isn't final. I want you to learn and evolve each week. So I hope you wrote it in a place where you'll be able to refer back to it and change it if needed. If you wrote it in pen, maybe a pencil or something or transfer it to a computer, but I want you to be able to change it because life is unpredictable.

and plans may need to change. Your quadrants may evolve with you. Also, just a note, there's no technology needed here under the list that you all you need is the list you made, the blueprint that you wrote down. You need that and you need your calendar, whatever that is. There are no special apps, no tracking sheets. This is you sitting down looking at your calendar for the next week in advance.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (18:44.302)

checking the sheet that you just created, check your blueprint and look at the calendar and see if you're getting each of your five quadrants in a way that feels good for you and figure out whether when and how these things can happen.

Now let's talk about important notes and lessons learned along the way, because That was the basics. I just told you how to do it. Now let me refine it a little bit with some tips and some helpful things. First of all, when, when do you plan your week in advance? Thursday at 2 PM That's my vote. If I could just tell you do Thursday at 2 PM from experience, that's my favorite time. That's the best time. To this day, it's marked on my calendar at work Thursday at 2 PM

I am planning my work week in advance and I'm planning my personal week in advance. Both personal and professional, you need to plan them both. And I like Thursday because then I can coast it. I look at the upcoming 10 days. So I go from Thursday all the way through the following Sunday. I'm looking at that time, checking my quadrants, my blueprint. I'm checking my blueprint to see what those five categories are and am I doing something for each of those contributing at there's something for each category in there. there.

And if Thursdays don't work for you though, that's fine. But I like going into Friday and the weekend already being ready for the next week. So Thursday at 2 PM is my main, but Just know if your week starts on Mondays, Mondays, like mine does, mine starts on Mondays, Monday morning is too late. You have to plan your week in advance by Sunday evening. You have to do it in advance. Next tip, these categories are about importance.

not about the number of hours. I had a guy once who came to one of my workshops and he raised his hand and he pointed out, hey, Brian, you know, I work 50 hours a week. There is no way that I can possibly get 50 hours for self and 50 hours for others and 50 hours for, and of course that's so true. And guys, that's no big deal. This is about importance, not about the number of hours. So you're gonna work way more hours than you'll do for any of these other categories.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (20:55.47)

And that's OK. Each of these categories is important and you should pay attention to each of them each week, but it's not about the amount of hours you spend on them. Each of them has the same level of importance, though, so you are fighting for each one. You are putting a sense of importance, the same level of importance on each one. Next tip, most of life balance isn't about the goals, it's about the journey. Here's what I mean. This exercise

is focused on making your journey fulfilling. Think about it. You likely worked for months or even years to get your most recent certification or your college degree. And if you don't enjoy your life along the way to those goals, you lose. you lose. 90 % of your life is the journey. This exercise sets you up to enjoy the journey along the way. Here's a...

This is my favorite quote that kind of speaks to this. Victor Frankl Frankl is an author. I'll put the link to this book in the notes. The book is called Man's Search for Meaning. And It's a first -person account of, he was a psychologist who was sent to concentration camps in World War II. So it's interesting to hear his account from a psychologist's perspective studying people's brains on what that was like. And he said in his book, this is the quote, mental health is based on a certain degree of tension.

It's the tension between what one already has achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or it's the gap between what one is and what one should become. He saw that when people were no longer making, were no longer on the journey of life in the camps, that's when they died. So making sure your life balance GLOWS like we talk about.

That's how you can live that fulfilled life. You stay on your journey. That's the piece. And this is how you do it with these quadrants or with these, these, this blueprint aim for progress, not perfection. That's the next tip. How do you feel at the end of the week, looking back? Focus on getting a little better each week and celebrating your accomplishments along the way. Adjust what you have written.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (23:15.918)

under your categories as needed. Now here's a special one for love and relationships in love and relationships that category I talked about love, family and friends. Here's a fine I want to fine tune that I found that at least two of those need to be in person regularly each week if at all possible to get the best amount of fulfillment. anything virtually and Anything that's virtual must be in person occasionally.

What I've seen over the years is that you can do one of these virtually, like maybe it's a phone call, you don't see them in person and that's fine, but to really get the fulfillment from the love and relationships category, two of them are in person. So for example, for me, I have a date night with my wife that's in person and I hang with my friends in person. And for me, my family quadrant, I call my family regularly each week. So that one is the virtual one for me.

And then every few months I actually see my family in person too. And those are great. And on those weeks, it might be my wife and my family that I see in person and my friends are the virtual one. So if it's always virtual, if all I ever did was see my family virtually and I never had the opportunity to look forward to seeing them in person, that's where you'll start to feel the weight of that connection. It'll feel like a weight on your shoulders. And also let me say here guys,

seeing someone on social media, you cannot count seeing your friends on social media. That doesn't count. This is about the interaction in person. That's where the fulfillment is. Now, next tip, don't beat yourself up if one week doesn't go as planned. The next week, you'll plan your upcoming week in advance and you'll get right back on track. My favorite quote is by Mike Tyson. He said, everyone's got to plan until they get punched in the mouth.

Right. You probably heard that quote. And sometimes life is going to punch you in the mouth. It happens somewhat regularly, kind of scarily sometimes. And that's OK. The week that you're in might go off track, but you look ahead, you plan your next week in advance, you get up and you get back on track again. Keep focusing on that next week and then the next one and then the next one. You're looking ahead. And this is what keeps you on track. Next tip.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (25:41.006)

Compete with yourself, not others. You need to love yourself and the progress you're making. That's what's important. You'll have ups and downs on some weeks, but ultimately you are moving through your journey and you're progressing. So don't compare yourself to others. It's your race. It's your life focused on your growth and progress.

Social media is the worst for this because it isn't real. It's like you're comparing your life to any other persons on their best day because that's what they post on social media. And that's not fair. You'll just get discouraged. It's not going to help you grow. This is about your journey. It's not about theirs or competing with theirs. And I know that's hard, but don't compete with others. Just watch yourself and your progress. It's awesome. Next tip.

Do not overbook yourself. I know you're probably thinking, well, Brian, you just told us to put everything on the calendar. I know, I know, I know I did. And when life gets hectic, it's going to be tempting to add more activities and more activities to an already packed schedule. And then you're just going to be overwhelmed. And you're going to be mad at me because there's too much on your calendar and you can't. And I understand instead. Here's what I want you to do. If you're overwhelmed, if there's.

If you're already overbooked, I want you to focus on trying to combine activities that can give you credit in more than one category. So here's an example. Jim was a guy who took my workshop and he was terrible about exercising, but he was really good at getting together and drinking with friends. He did that all the time. So Here's what Jim did. He made some of his social events with friends into activities like like going for a walk.

walking around a park or playing frisbee golf or playing sports, maybe play softball, play soccer or going to play golf and not using a golf cart, by the way, actually walking all 18 holes with your friends. That's a great way to get friend time and have an activity or some sort of exercise to go with it. That's a way that he can take his already packed schedule and add more diversity to it. So see if you can come up with Activities that give you credit in

Brian Nelson-Palmer (28:02.094)

more than one of these categories at the same time. Next up, next tip, if you feel guilty taking time for yourself, it's important that you need to work through it. Your life balance depends on you getting some time to yourself and knowing how much of that you need and how you're gonna get it. So you know how on the plane they say like put your own life jacket on before you assist others? That is this situation.

So here's one example that I have. Imagine you're a single mom. You might struggle taking time for yourself. You might feel guilty because, well, if you take time for yourself, that means it's going to be an extra expense because now you got to pay the babysitter and then that's going to put you in a bad spot. And it's like dominoes and it just all falls down. So after taking this course, maybe you start looking for creative solutions to this. Maybe you have a neighbor with kids as well and you could set up a barter system. Maybe the neighbor takes the kids one night.

and that gives you your me time. And then you take the kids another night. And you know, better yet, because the kids have someone else to play with when they're all at your house, you actually might be able to start dabbling in Spanish lessons on your phone and do a free app like Duolingo on the night when you have the kids, because you're supervising them, but you can maybe while you're supervising them also get into some Spanish lessons. So look for these kinds of opportunities. You need to stand up for the needs and time to yourself.

that you need. That's important over time. Next tip. This works in all stages of life with a couple of minor modifications. Here's the two most common ones I get. I just talked about GLOWS. GLOWS is the acronym which includes work, right? Well, what if you don't work? What if you're a student? Well, students, the category of work simply changes to school. So instead of GLOWS, it's GLOSS, G -L -O -S -S for them, right? It's the same process though.

It's the same thing. They just put in their goals in the school area. Or the other one that comes up for me a lot is what if they're retired and you don't work anymore? The other four categories are so important. That's G, L, O, and S, right? So I've actually, I've been asked to share this training with retired folks in a retirement homes because everything in growth, love, others, and self, everything in those four categories,

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still applies to you all the way up to the day you die. Every one of them. So you need to stay on your journey. Don't stop because that's the end. Next tip. Demanding jobs are not an excuse to get out of this. I've worked with everyone on this from attorneys to teachers to work workers at nonprofits and everywhere else in between in all the different careers. Even if your hours are unpredictable or crazy,

You start your week with a plan to hit all of these categories. You're still planning your week in advance every week, even if it's job is demanding. Now, what if I have one category that's empty? This is a, you know, this is a gap for you that you may have been missing in your life balance up to now, and you didn't know you were missing it. So do some soul searching, see if you can find one, try to achieve one thing.

from each of the categories each week when you start this drill. The categories I shared comes from, it comes from years of research, hundreds of weeks of practice, experience, and evaluation with myself and with others. I still use my categories. If you take the workshop, I show you my current, my current blueprint. I have it and I share it with you because this is something that's still true for me to this day. So some categories might have more written in them than others. And,

That's fine. That's actually normal. Just know that each category is important. So work toward having something in each category. The other, the flip side to that is what if there's way too much in my categories and I can't do it all? I get this one a lot. A lot of you type A folks might've written down about a hundred goals and some of these things. I've seen some amazing blueprints as people have done this and

Some people that I've worked with have filled their categories with so much stuff that they can't possibly do everything in that list. You should have enough across all your categories to feel pushed each week. That's the right amount. It might be a little bit of a stretch. It might be a little bit uncomfortable, but it should be achievable while feeling a little pushed. That would be perfect. So remember the goal of this whole thing is to feel your life is

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balanced to feel good about your life. Your life is full. If you feel overwhelmed or like a failure because you didn't get all of the things on your on your blueprint, you have too much on your plate. Remember, I told you the story about me and I had the four jobs and then I was able to transition that one when it rolled off. So you may need to take some things off of a category for now. That doesn't mean it's forgotten.

That just means you can always bring it back later. You can shift the time around later, but this is what starts tracking you toward, are you hitting the five quadrants or are you hitting the quadrants? Are you hitting the five categories in this?

So that is what's important.

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Here's an example. I used to have four jobs. I had my day job. I had my passion career, which is this business, Productivity Gladiator. I was also doing some part -time work with a nonprofit, helping them with a program that they were running. And then I also teach group fitness classes. I was able to handle it all and still get meaningful activity from each of my categories each week. But the growth category...

in that growth category, I'd been wanting to finish learning Spanish. I studied Spanish in my early adult life after college, but I never finished becoming fluent. And it always frustrated me that I didn't finish that because it would be so handy. I live in Florida for most of the year and that would be so handy. So with all this work that I was doing, I just didn't have time to fit in learning Spanish. So I took that off my life balance blueprint because at the time I was beating myself up.

because I never had time to do it. I never took the lessons. And it was still in my head though, something that I wanted to do. So a year later, the program at the nonprofit had kind of run its course. So I rolled off that and I was back down to three jobs, which you can laugh at me for, but that rolling off that one job freed up a few hours each week. And I added learn Spanish.

back to my categories. And I spend one to two hours per week studying Spanish right now. And that's for no one other than me. That is my growth thing for me personally, and I enjoy it. So remember the five categories guide your balance and they're going to evolve just like you do. But what you're doing in for each category isn't set in stone. You can change or you can update your categories.

whenever you wanna shift your balance, update your blueprint, because it's gonna change. Wow, that was a lot. So I've got two quick things to close this out. I hope that that was helpful and I hope that you tried the exercise and that you actually have stuff written down for your five categories. And two things to close it out. First, if you have a friend or a colleague who you've talked about the struggle for life balance with.

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would you send them the link to this episode specifically? I'd love to know that this info is getting to the people who it can help. And it certainly would be fulfilling for me to know that that meaningful connection with that friend would go toward that love and relationships thing for you, where you can have that conversation with that friend. Maybe you can call them and talk about some of this stuff afterwards. I would love for that connection to happen for you. And then the second thing is,

There's more to this, of course. This episode is an excellent start and it will get you started. If you want the full education on this, go to productivitygladiator .com, click on get the training and choose the option for the individual. There is so much more you'll get in the online course, like demos of what successfully planning your week in advance looks like in practice, scheduling tactics, hacks. You'll see my blueprint that I use. It's more...

If it's more than just you, the individual as well, maybe you're thinking about this for your team. I teach this to teams like yours all the time. So reach out to me too. I'd love to help. Thanks for liking and subscribing. And I do a lot with my email list. So join in on that fun if you want the best of what I send out. I love sharing Productivity Gladiator with you because together we're going to change your life. That's a wrap.