Work / Life Balance?

Before Oscar I used to work all the time. I could work until 3am and be happy. But when the little guy arrived, things obviously changed and for the last year I've been trying to find a work/life balance. We need my income, but also I am lucky to absolutely adore my job so finding time to work is a pleasure for me. It is also my "alone" time. I set aside certain times to work to make sure it doesn't impact this...

He's at the age where he's fully interacting and we play in the living room making forts (or, take them down)

But, my determination for work life balance hasn't been easy, in fact I've been working away at it for a year. I set up ground rules about my work schedule -  and although it helped me gain somewhat of a work/life balance, I did loose a corporate client recently who prior to Oscar, didn't have to deal with me having set office hours. They preferred my 7 day a week availability and and my new set office hours of 3 office days, weren't agreeable to them.

I was kind of bummed about the whole thing - for a little bit I felt like a bit of a failure not being able to handle it all - surely other people worked ALL the time and had kids? It was a fleeting moment, however, as I knew to be a good Mom, and a good business person, I needed to have boundaries. I saw this post on the Work Life Balance Project over on Design Mom. I loved # 4 where she writes 4) Multi-tasking creates poor results. Do one thing at a time and do it well. 

This was my ah-ha moment. After reading this I removed all work e-mail accounts from my blackberry. A small thing but already has positively impacted my life. No longer am I standing there making lunch for Oscar, just "checking" to see if anyone needs me. Responding to a customer while I'm making lunch for Oscar results in a poor response to my customer and Oscar, is not getting my full attention.

Anyhow, really this was all stemmed from reading the post on Design Mom and wanting to share it with you - I think it's a nice, clear list of how she juggles it all. I'm trying myself, a few balls are dropping, but I'm hoping to have it all figured out one day.