Embracing The New Paradigm Shift in "Balancing Life" !

We, humans, have always craved for harmony and sought balance in life. The more ways we have invented/ discovered to keep ourselves busy and occupied, work-wise, the more need we have generated to find ways to focus and pay attention to other areas of our life, beyond "work".

Various paradigm shifts have shaped our evolution and growth (if one may call it so !) as a modern society - a society which thrives on technology and seeks impeccability in everything. The shift from industrialisation to urbanisation, opened us up to more work and skills, but also had repercussions, which made us vulnerable to stress, pressure, ill-health, and like. When the realisation of a holistic health dawned on us, we started our quest for achieving/ maintaining work-life balance, to ensure that life is lived well in all dimensions.

Now, it's time for a reality check - the above mentioned quest for "work-life" balance was good as long as technology had not permeated our lives. With the advent of Internet/ Web, things shaped differently for us. The paradigm shifts, triggered by technology, have been frequent and overwhelming, with the result that we are given no time and opportunity to look away from the screens (desktops, laptops, tablets, gadgets, smartphones, and the like). Each of these paradigm shifts have left us hopping from one tool to another and our addiction to these "screens" has in fact created a resultant shift in the act of balancing our life. It's no longer "Work-Life" Balance that we need to worry about, now it's the "Online-Offline" Balance.

The need or desire to be more productive, efficient or effective, that kept us glued to our gadgets and smartphones has now turned into a strong urge or habit and this has become our undoing and the key reason for not letting us detach from this addiction of "Online".  And this addiction comes with a plenty to be regretful about later - be it our health (physical, mental and emotional), relationships, achievement or peace of mind, whereby everything takes a hit and leaves us deficient.

Science tells us that humans have immense capability and potential for more but i am sure, in all probability, this was not in reference to our ability to manage multiple gadgets and screens. This "Online-Offline" imbalance has, in fact, rendered us deficient in terms of focus, attention span, concentration and ultimately achievement. The psychological impact of this "Online-Offline" imbalance is quite alarming where it could result in acute depression, low self-esteem and self-confidence.

With so much at stake because of this "Online-Offline" imbalance, it makes sense to address it and bring order and peace back in our life. The 3-step approach of Reflect, Analyse and Act

• Reflect - Aren't we all living life in the fast lane, courtesy technology ? And most of the time, don't we lose track of where we are headed because of this "busyness" ? This is precisely why "Reflect" step provides a great opportunity to take stock of things and seize back control of our life. This (Reflect) is the time to ponder and ask ourself few pertinent questions such as 

• Am i spending a major chunk of my time being "Online", consciously or unconsciously, with or without reason ?
• Am i compromising on important offline tasks, actions, activities ?
• Have i ever felt short of time to complete certain important tasks because of my online busyness ?
• Do i have a plan/ schedule/ purpose for my "Online"activities ?
• Has "being online" become a habit or addiction for me ?
• Do i tend to spend endless hours/ minutes being "online" and ignore/ shy away from doing anything else, even though it might be an important matter ?
• Has "being/ working online" become a habit or addiction for me ? 

• Analyze -  This is where we get specific about details and ask ourself the following questions 
• What are my online and offline needs and how much is the time demand for them ?
• Against the identified time need for online and offline activities, how much time do i actually spend on online and offline activities ?
• How much am i losing out in terms of time, effort, energy and achievement by being unnecessarily online ?
• In recent past, what important tasks, projects, assignments I could not complete because of my excessive online behaviour ?
• What is my driving force to go "online", most of the times ? Is this driving force constructive and taking me closer to my life goals ?
• Identify your online consumption, in terms of few key areas like Work(Professional), Personal, Leisure, Self-Development, Entertainment and Networking. 

• Act - Achieving the "Online-Offline" balance is a continuous process and only concrete and consistent actions/ steps could help us achieve this balance. Some of the actions we could take are as mentioned below :

• Always have a tentative daily plan or a checklist, clearly segregating the online and offline activities you need to do during the day
• Prioritise your activities (online and offline) in terms of their importance and assign them a timeline. For online activities, define a time cut-off limit to remain on track
• Limit your screen time by applying strategies like
• switching off gadgets at a specified time
• keeping gadgets out of bounds when working offline
• observing a technology downtime day during the week
• Attach an objective to every online activity
• Align your every online activity to a goal, big or small, short-term or long-term
• Seek/ Engage an accountability partner for keeping you on track about your online consumption. It could be a friend, colleague, relative or even a coach.
• Wherever possible, shift from small screen to a big screen to reduce too much interactivity
• Be mindful while working online as this will help you remain focused and observant.  
• If most of your online consumption is for leisure/ entertainment, replace that time with some useful and constructive hobby, such as reading, music, drawing/ painting, etc.
• Find appropriate substitutes for online activities that could be replaced with their offline counterparts, without any loss of productivity, such as reading the traditional print books instead of reading a digital version, meeting close by friends in person than chatting online.  
• Never lose any opportunity to be in the "real world", such as meeting up with friends/ people in person, go travelling, playing a sport, going for a walk, and things similar. 

Value yourself and you will always make the best use of time !