Everything in balance

"Everything in moderation" is popular advice to throw around.

You can eat red meat, as long as it's in moderation. Go ahead and have some drinks, as long as it's in moderation.

While this makes sense, I think there is a corollary to it, and it's "Everything in balance."

If you eat red meat, make sure you're getting your vegetables. If you're having a few drinks, eat a good meal and chug some water too.

To me, balance is the key to productivity, happiness, satisfaction, and pretty much everything.

A few days ago, I wrote a blog post titled "Quality vs. Quantity: which should you focus on?" Many of the comments on that post alluded to finding a balance between quality and quantity.

I couldn't agree more. It's difficult, but if you can strike that balance between quality and quantity, you'll find success. If you focus too much on quality, you may not be able to achieve many tasks. If you focus too much on quantity, your quality will suffer.

In the gym, you need to balance between your upper and lower body, strength and cardio, and mass building and slimming down.

Finding that perfect balance between work and life is tough as well.

In the past, there were times when there was so much on my plate at work that I skipped out on the gym and ate fast food like it's going out of style.

I felt and looked like crap, and it hurt my productivity at work.

Now I'm much more focused on finding balance.

While there is still plenty to do for work, I have many other life responsibilities that can't be ignored, which forces me to balance everything out.

I'm much more cognizant of how my body and brain reacts when I don't get enough exercise or don't eat well.

I use the Pomodoro Technique to include more breaks into my day.

And I'm more often intentionally disconnecting from work and technology in general. I'm incorporating time in my day to think, I'm writing more often with pen and paper, and I'm thinking about doing some kind of meditation to help me clear my mind and zone out.

How are you achieving balance?

This is day 22 of my experiment to blog for 30 consecutive days.