I’ve been working towards this for some time now. Living my life in extremes helps me live to my full potential.
This can be approached on a few different levels.
Micro – Working in micro sprints (Pomidoro Method). Bursts of extreme focus on only one thing.
Macro – Separating work and personal as much as possible. Meaning when I’m working, I’m working. When I’m offline, I’m offline.
Doing this so far has increased the quality of time I’m spending at work and the quality of time that I spend with my family.
Think about it in another way. If you’re playing with your kids or spending time with your partner and checking your email every five minutes you can’t really be effective at either activity.
At the macro level I think we can get confused between work-life ‘balance’ and work-life ‘blending’. I think ‘blending’ or trying to do everything at the same time isn’t nearly as effective as ‘balance with borders’.