Summary: Balance is a popular word among life coaches and leadership authors. As important as it is to remember to invest in the meaningful areas of your life, too many people place unrealistic expectations upon themselves. <br> Living a life of meaning does not mean being perfect. This is misperception is not only unrealistic, it is also unhealthy. Life is messy. Sometimes you face unexpected challenges in your health, relationships, or finances. When you look at your own condition, not matter how exhilarating or depressing, the first response is to give yourself the kind of grace you would want to extend to someone you love. We all face ups and downs. <br> But sometimes we need reminders to refocus on what matters. It’s a delicate but important tension to be aware of both truths:<br> 1. You need to invest in what matter to keep growing.<br><br> 2. You need to be patient with yourself (and others) along the journey.<br> As I continue this series on Reflections for Education Leaders, I’d like to add some thoughts for school leaders on how to better manage your time, but I want to offer these as suggestions, not prescriptions. You do not need any more guilt than you already have about the difficulty of balancing your responsibilities. But you may gain some valuable ideas in the following discussion about time:<br> What Are Your Goals For Your Time?<br> Several years ago, I was talking to a friend of mine who was twenty years younger than I am. He and his wife were establishing life after college, they had just become parents, and his small business was beginning to grow. I was reflecting with him about my own memories at his age: how my wife and I had lived on one income to pay off college debts with our second income, and how we had saved up to buy our first home before our first baby was born.<br> As I celebrated his journey and reminisced about my own, he asked an honest but provoking question. “So, what goals have you set for yourself now?” I paused for a moment and then answered as honestly as I could. “Well,” I said, “I think my biggest goal right now is to simply survive!” <br> With a growing family and the demands of being an assistant principal at the time, I couldn’t think of a better answer. It was honest, but over the next several days, those words haunted me. When was the last time I had really thought about the next goals I wanted to reach for myself or my family? <br> During that same time, I came across a podcast interview with Robert Smith, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/20-000-Days-Counting-Mastering/dp/B00ADSSB32/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" rel="noopener" target="_blank">20,000 Days and Counting: The Crash Course for Mastering Your Life Right Now.</a> Robert related how at age fifty-five, he realized he had now lived 20,000 days. When you look at life from that perspective, you realize that if you are blessed with a life of 75 years, you have approximately 27,375 days to live. On my next birthday, I will be fifty years old, which means I will have reached 18,250 days. If I make it to 75 years old, that means I have approximately 9,000 days to go.<br> You may be doing the math in your own head now. No matter where you are on the scale, you realize that we all have a limited number of days, hours and minutes. We can either make the most of them, or we can look back with regret on the moments lost. Without overwhelming you with the guilt that comes from trying to achieve perfect balance, I want to encourage you to think about how to make the most of your time so you still take calculated risks and have fewer regrets. None of us ever does this perfectly. But when we begin to take perspective on our time, we can begin to set sensible goals.<br> School leaders have an especially difficult time managing time. Researchers from the Center for Education Policy Analysis share findings in a helpful report, <a href="https://cepa.stanford."></a>
