Productivity and Systems

Is this work-life balance?

The one thing that changed how I spend my days
Lex Roman 4 min read
Is this work-life balance?

Brought to you by Sunsama. Make work-life balance a reality with Sunsama's daily planner. Try Sunsama free for 30 days.

Sunsama logo

I never cared about work-life balance.

First because I'm a product of the United States where work reigns supreme.

Second because I grew up wanting to make movies. I knew that meant 14-16 hour workdays and it wasn't gonna leave time for much else.

Having weekend plans? NO THANKS! In college, I spent as many Friday nights as I could on set with my dad watching the crew of Law and Order: Criminal Intent shoot a crime scene on the dark and gritty streets of the Lower East Side.

Me with Kathryn Erbe and Jamey Sheridan on the set of Criminal Intent
Me with Kathryn Erbe and Jamey Sheridan on the set of Criminal Intent circa 2002

This all or nothing view of work continued far into my 20s as I followed in my dad's footsteps, moved out to LA and started working in TV. Tech was no better for balance when I switched careers in 2012. If my job workload wasn't hefty enough, I found extracurriculars to fill my time like co-founding a film festival or freelancing on a startup's design. If you're not hustling, you're being hustled, right???

When I became an entrepreneur, this behavior put me in a dangerous place. It's VERY EASY to justify working 24/7 on your own company. But it starts to be a real grind at some point. It's not fun anymore. It's just frustrating. An endless to do list.

I had a wake up call in 2021 when a doctor told me I had created a bunch of health problems for myself by working so much. I needed to make a change.

Soon after that, I found something that would help me make this change: Sunsama.

Sunsama is my daily planning tool. It's improved how I see time. It's improved how I budget time. It's improved how I spend time.

I do want to prioritize some LIFE STUFF now like getting new eyeglasses (hello, progressives!), buying a gift for my dad (happy birthday Pops!) and planning my next trip (Antigua, Guatemala!)

Sunsama helps me balance this alongside work easily.

A view of my Sunsama dashboard (work and personal are labeled and you see all my tasks)
A view of my Sunsama dashboard

Inside Sunsama, I have tags for work and personal and then labels for specific themes like this newsletter (#revenue-rulebreaker) and my travel days (#transition-tasks).

Sunsama auto-labels new tasks for me, making it easy to see the split of work + personal. It also estimates how much time it believes each task will take. It gets better over time as I add similar or recurring tasks.

My channels in Sunsama
My tags in Sunsama (called "channels")

What's powerful about this is that Sunsama reflects back to me:

  • My predicted work load at the beginning of the day
  • What time I can shut down work based on how much is on the list
  • How I ACTUALLY spent my time at the end of the day
How I spent my time (shown in Sunsama)

These in-my-face reminders of where the time goes help me make room for important stuff like getting to the doctor (something I LOVE to put off). Because the time estimates make it easy to see how personal tasks would impact my work schedule. If I take 2 hours to go to the doctor, I have 4 hours of work to budget and I can just drag those tasks around. Or maybe it's easier to turn it into a personal day. Either way, Sunsama lets me see how the scenarios impact my schedule.

The end result is that I actually do get my work done at a reasonable hour now. I'm writing this at 4:30pm and I'm gonna be done for the day after that, having accomplished what I needed to today.

Past Lex wouldn't know what to do with themself. New Lex knows there's something called LEISURE and is excited to experience that ☀️

Can you relate to overworking yourself into the ground? If so, you should try Sunsama. It will help you use your time better. Try it free for 30 days.

🎲 Lex

Share
Comments

Revenue Rulebreaker

Build your internet business, one revenue stream at a time. Breaking down how making money online *really* works from subscriptions to services and sponsorships with creator Lex Roman.

Great! You’ve successfully signed up.

Welcome back! You've successfully signed in.

You've successfully subscribed to Revenue Rulebreaker.

Success! Check your email for magic link to sign-in.

Success! Your billing info has been updated.

Your billing was not updated.