The world can be an extremely busy place at times, especially for someone who owns and operates their own business.
However, there are ways to help monitor and manage one’s time to get the best out of their business while not getting stressed out or overwhelmed by it all.
That balance and the many ways that can be attempted to achieve it is the main topic that Dr. Kaveri Subrahmanyam, Dean of College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Florida, talked about during the latest Circle of Creation event at the link on June 12.
“Managing work and life is always a challenge,” Subrahmanyam said. “Whenever you do, it’s about identifying your priorities.”
According to Subrahmanyam, part of the continued struggle to find balance is the increasing reliance people have had on technology over the decades, to the point where it is now such a part of our lives that it can easily be the downfall for many.
She has been involved in several studies over the years that have investigated these factors and a real correlation between time spent on technology and a lack of balance in one’s life.
However, she also realizes that because technology has reached such point in our lives where it is not so much the amount of time spent on the products, but how one is choosing to use that time spent.
“Everything has a positive and a negative about it,” Subrahmanyam said. “It all depends on when you are using or watching that media. Social media for example, has helped us keep in touch with our friends, but the question becomes how deep are these relationships?”
As a result, in some instances online and offline lives are not always correlated and that can create an issue when deciphering what is real and tangible and what is not.
“I’ve really changed my perception of technology,” Subrahmanyam said. “Early on, I thought it was mostly good but overtime I have seen where it has become more and more intrusive. It can give you the perception that you have this deep network, but when you step back you realize how many of these we can really rely on.”
However, there are methods that have been proven to work to help combat the growing stranglehold that technology can sometimes seem to have on a person’s life.
And simply enough it starts with setting boundaries for oneself.
If these boundaries work, it can then be passed along and applied to both personal and work life.
One of the ways she has found that works effectively through research is choosing not to bring your cellphone in the bedroom and looking at it before one goes to bed, but instead leaving it in a separate room on charge during the night.
“It’s very easy to just go ahead and take your phone to bed and use it as an alarm clock, but it just feeds to the intrusiveness,” Subrahmanyam said.
At the end of the day, she knows technology is here to stay which makes it even more important to understand that it is a tool that needs to be used but not lived by.
“Research in my lab has shown that the effect of a high-quality face-to-face interaction has a longer lasting effect than a virtual message or conversation,” Subrahmanyam said. “It is important we don’t forget the human element.”
