With all this talk about work-life balance I decided it was time I learned some of the secrets. I’ve been looking for the Holy Grail of how to juggle all those important aspects of my life, without getting any one of them out of kilter. So off I went to a seminar led by a businesswoman extraordinaire. It was a working lunch actually, which was even better since I never seem to find time to step out for a decent lunch any more. Already I was in front!

For 45 minutes I heard this woman speak about raising her children as a single mum, while growing a business and keeping pace with a world growing more manic by the minute. I heard the messages about multi-tasking and work flexibility – which in her case involved taking work home to do on the PC in her kitchen after the kids had gone to bed.

I heard how she managed to “find” another hour a day by reviewing work while the kids were eating breakfast and getting ready for school or while they were at sports training, or by reading journals or listening to podcasts while pounding the treadmill at the gym. She encouraged us to think of times where we could add a bit more productivity to our daily processes so we too could find that elusive extra time we seem to need to get everything done.

So yesterday I decided to put some of the theory into action. The obvious target was my morning walk, which usually lasts about an hour. So I set off with the beagles, equipped with a range of business podcasts, ready to claw back some of the “white space” in my walking routine. (“White space” for the uninformed is the unproductive time we spend on tasks that don’t produce any tangible output. It’s a term that came from Japanese manufacturing philosophies and has been made famous by the lean thinkers around the world – including experts in work-life balance, it seems.)

Now walking 3 beagles in itself is a bit of a challenge, but it’s the highlight of the day for my pack and in the city it’s an imperative rather than an option – for all our sakes and that of our neighbours’ too! Fortunately I enjoy the walks and we’ve developed a pretty good routine so – as daunting as it may seem – the dogs have become fairly manageable. That was, until I introduced the added complication of the podcasts. You see it took my attention away from the dogs – which they noticed immediately and took exception to – and before long it was suddenly quite difficult to manage 3 scent hounds whose main purpose in life is tracking smells… wherever they may go.

Within a block and a half of leaving home we’d had 2 tangles; none of the pack were behaving; I almost had us all run over when I stepped off the curb engrossed in the advice of Rosabeth Moss-Kantor and didn’t hear the approaching car ‘til it ground to a halt in front of us. Needless to say the pups were not impressed!

So I took the ear buds out and decided enough is enough. I can enjoy my peaceful walk in the morning without the need to remove the white space. I don’t need to cram more into my day; I just need to get the most from what I do spend my time on.

The experts can have their theories. I’ve made my own ruling on work-life balance – as long as I can enjoy my work and my life, it’s good enough balance for me.

What's your take on work-life balance?  What works for you and what advice have you binned?