I recently decided to assign a Creative Commons Attribute-Non Commercial-Share Alike license to a new form, the Day Grid Balancer. Feel free to discuss here.

I am going to try out your version first, then make mods as needed.

thanks for the editable versions, Katrina

Awesome, looking forward to seeing it!

What I am finding is that it is hard to gauge when to fill in the blocks. It seldom takes me an hour to do most things. However the color categories are an excellent visual reminder of the balance I am seeking. And where do you put the all important Plan category? This is one area where I do spend hours of contiguous time. Hmmm ...

The sleep blocks are not really needed IMNSHO, and I definitely need verbs instead of the nouns Home and Health. Trying to brainstorming some verbs... Maintain, Sustain, Manage, Build, Care, etc. I dunno.

So after four days, I see value in using color and categories to act as a nudge toward balance. It has gently reminded me to look up from the computer and look around. But the categories beyond Create, Converse/Share and Happy/Practice need work.

I had also used a 2 week sheet earlier this year. Check it out here: http://www.katrinamessenger.com/two_week_planning

I am thinking that the balance chart will ultimately need to be a combo of Dave's robots with my weekly index card to work for me ... which will be a vast improvement to my old two week form.

I am enjoying this investigation, experiment, collaboration and discussion. Let's keep it going!

Here is my newest entry in bot design. I so enjoyed the butterfly of BrashTech, so here are my versions of it. One with and one without supporting graphics.

This was way too much fun. I would probably choose different graphics if I had time. Okay enough of this, back to work!

BrashTech: I like the butterfly idea! Good job on removing the sleep component since you're already doing that. Your comment "a rigid schedule isn't working for you" triggered a very useful insight just now, that this approach just might be a nice alternative to structure. It replacses temporal structure with compositional structure. Wow! Looking forward to hearing how your experiment went.

Katrina: It's great to collaborate on this, yes! As I was looking through your balance check card followed by the butterfly inspired by Britt, I started looking for interesting flow patterns in the design of the balance figure. Britt's original butterfly plus your comment introduce an idea that perhaps there are ancient mandala forms that could be adaptable. I think the idea that we paint our paths with our task completions is what I'd like to see emerge from a tracker/planner.

TM: That's a pretty cool link, thanks for posting it! It reminds me a bit of the philosophy behind the Printable CEO Concrete Goals Tracker, without the bubbling about :-) I can't believe I haven't come across this blog before.

Hey Dave,

Sorry for being MIA for a bit, I was ill. It is a recurrent problem for me, i.e. managing my health -- long story.

But while I was recovering, it allowed me time to really sink into this whole issue of work/life balancing some more. I kept making more bots, trying out different scenarios, loads of mind maps and mandalas and generally thinking about balance.

What I realized was that because of my peculiarities as a full-time mystic/writer/teacher and p/t web designer, it was really hard for me to define what "work" was in terms of work/life balance. My "work" at times resembles most geeks, but often it involves time gazing at nature or scribbling for hours in a journal.

But the real issue was what is Work? Oh sure I could use my equations from my physics/engineering background, but does it illuminate anything for me? No. The short answer is that work is what earns me a living. And what is Life? Well it is the sum total of my experiences from birth through death. Uh ... and what am I trying to balance again? Work vs Life is not my core imbalance.

So the issue really comes down to ... what is out of balance in my life? And after lots of scribbling and staring at nature the answer is ... I am out of balance between what nurtures me and what I give to the world, not between work and life.

So I began making a list of what nurtures me and what it is I produce to make a living and/or impact the world. And I found a pattern. My "work" changes all the time. Some periods I am banging out web sites like crazy, other times I am teaching classes all over the place, and still other times I am writing like mad woman. And like last fall, sometimes I am doing all three at the same time which impacts me severely in the self nurturing department.

What I realized was that the work balance between create vs share sort of took care of itself, what I really needed was a focus on self nurturing.

So I rephrased the issue to ... what do I need to do to insure that self nurturance does not get short shrift? And that led me to create a new weekly card. I credit you with getting me to use more colors. HEre is my new balance card I will be testing this week. And I also included some images of how I actually use the cards. (I am changing to slashes instead of checks.)

Thanks so much for nudging me to really look hard at these areas. This is definitely still a work in progress.

Katrina

Katrina: Very nice! I'd be tempted to vary some of the weights of the type and the tone of the text, but I like the list itself.

Fubbs: VERY NICE refactoring of the original diagram! It's beyootiful! I love the tree analogy. The heart adds a nice little tough to it too. How did it work out?

So okay, I have used my new and improved weekly card for a few weeks and you will never guess what I discovered.

Apparently just tracking the self nurture side of the balance beam is not all that satisfying.

I keep wondering about all that creative and connective stuff .... and wether I am making progress toward my larger, long term goals.

So I am re-thinking the card. Maybe I will include a balance bot at the bottom and get rid of the weekly and nurture grid.

And yeah, I need a higher level view of what it is I am trying to accomplish with all this incessant working.

More later ...

Okay, it hit me as I ate lunch .... funny how food often helps the brain of the starving mystic, hah! ... your Concrete Goals Tracker is supposed to help with exactly this type of issue. But I have never figured out what to put in each category so I have not used it. I cannot remember if you wrote up how you came to figure out what were 10s versus 5s or 2s versus 1s.

Lots to think about though ... hmmmm

I have no idea how this happened, but I completely missed your article on how to customize your CGT.

So my first attempt is attached. I will test it out this week and see if it helps in the meta role of keeping me inspired and motivated.

I feel like I am talking to myself here ... but considering that I am crazed mystic and a introverted intuitive, it is not that big of a stretch anyway.

So I am sharing my latest weekly index card. I have been experimenting with various schemes of finding balance and illustrating whatever balance is already present in my life. This has been tuned to work with my newest CGT version.

Dave, I hope you like the colors and fonts I used in this version.

Hey Katrina,

Sorry I don't get to this forum as often as I should, but you're doing a great job at maintaining the momentum.

Not surprising you missed the customized CGT...the whole archive is a huge mess :-)

I like your weekly index card...is it double-sided? I have a suggestion on your layout. Try fading out the edges of the boxes (Y, J, D, etc) a bit by making them a lighter color. I think that will help with clarity.

Dave

I like your weekly index card...is it double-sided? I have a suggestion on your layout. Try fading out the edges of the boxes (Y, J, D, etc) a bit by making them a lighter color. I think that will help with clarity.

Thanks! I have the CGT tracker on the flip side. I now keep them in a Levenger Circa 3 x 5 notebook so I can carry it with me. I have the scoring card in a clear plastic sleeve facing the tracker. This way once I check something off, I can immediately score it. The next version will have the score values on the weekly card itself.

Man, I wish I could use a gradient or any design tool. Alas, I have misplaced my Macromedia disks and cannot run any of my old software since I upgraded to a new laptop. I am hoping that the cleaning service just put them somewhere safe as opposed to them having "walked" out of the house. I keep looking for them, cuz right now I cannot afford to buy new. Till then I am forced to use the brute force method, i.e. the weekly card using Excel and all the bots using Omnigraffle.

If you know of a free or low cost alternative, I am all ears.

Oh and don't worry about me, I spent most of my free time in loud enthusiastic self-dialogue - it is an occupational hazard!