Work-Life Balance (Measure Your Mojo) template
The Work-Life Balance template encourages you to use the Measure Your Mojo exercise to evaluate how much of your time is spent on activities (inside and outside of work) that generate happiness and meaning. This template was created by the world-renowned leadership expert and coach, Dr. Marshall Goldsmith.
What is the Measure Your Mojo exercise?
‘Measure Your Mojo’ is a powerful self-assessment exercise that helps you to evaluate what percentage of your time is spent on activities that bring you short-term satisfaction (happiness) and/or long-term benefit (meaning) – both inside and outside of work. ‘Mojo’ is a positive and powerful spirit that starts inside and radiates outside, which is something that can inspire and uplift others. When you love what you do and make this clear on the outside, your career won’t just reach its full potential, but you’ll have better life satisfaction too.
A big part of achieving life satisfaction is ensuring you have a healthy work-life balance – which is something that’s vital for ensuring your health and well-being. Those who strike the right balance find that they’re not only healthier and happier but more productive too. By using my Work-Life Balance template to measure your mojo, you can determine whether you need to rethink where you spend your time in order to achieve happiness and meaning, which will also help you to achieve a better work-life balance.
This exercise requires you to consider your time in two-dimensions; short-term satisfaction and long-term benefit. You can then use this premise to split the activities you engage in (both inside and outside of work) into the following categories:
Sacrificing: Activities that are low in short-term satisfaction but high in long-term benefit.
Succeeding: Activities that are high in short-term satisfaction and long-term benefit.
Sustaining: Activities that produce moderate amounts of short-term satisfaction and lead to moderate long-term benefits.
Surviving: Activities that are low in short-term satisfaction and long-term benefit.
Stimulating: Activities that are high in short-term satisfaction but low in long-term benefit.
Why should you use the Work-Life Balance template?
When you truly love what you do, you feel inspired to achieve more – and can inspire this same feeling in others too. Similarly, having a healthy work-life balance is vital for maintaining your mental well-being and physical health. If the scales tip too far one way, you will be less likely to reach your professional goals; however, it tips too far the other way and you focus too much on your work, this will lead to stress, and eventually, burnout.
My Work-Life Balance template helps you to determine what percentage of your time is spent doing activities that bring you happiness and meaning by putting it into a visual format that’s easy to understand. This will help you to assess whether you need to rethink your priorities and make changes that will have a positive impact on your work and personal life.
How to use the Work-Life Balance template
My Work-Life Balance template is already divided into the sections you need, so you can easily start assessing how you spend your time. Discover how to use my template below.
To access the template, sign up to Ayoa. Once you've signed up, navigate to the homepage to create a new whiteboard, mind map or task board and choose this template from the library.
Use sticky notes to add any activities that you commonly engage in to the template. On each sticky note you add, make a note of whether it is a personal or work-related activity and estimate how much time you spend on each activity in a given timeframe (such as a week).
Organize each sticky note into the section of the template that it is most relevant to the short-term satisfaction (happiness) and long-term benefit (meaning) it brings. Use the below to help you determine which category they should be placed into:
Sacrificing: Any activities that score low in short-term satisfaction but high in long-term benefit (such as working extra hours to gain a promotion).
Succeeding: Any activities that score high on short-term satisfaction and high on long- term benefit. These activities are the ones that we love to do and happen to bring great benefits (such as spending time with your children).
Sustaining: Any activities that produce moderate amounts of short-term satisfaction and lead to moderate long-term benefits (such as cleaning, cooking, answering work emails, and other daily responsibilities).
Surviving: Any activities that score low on short-term satisfaction and low on long-term benefit. These are the things we feel we have to do to ‘get by’.
Stimulating: Any activities that score high in short-term satisfaction but low in long-term benefit (such as watching television).
Now that you’ve organized your sticky notes, it’s time to calculate how much time you spend on each type of activity and determine whether you have a healthy work-life balance. For each section of the template, add up the total number of hours spent on the activities that are listed in that section that are carried out inside of work. Then do the same for those that are done outside of work. Remember to make a note of these.
Now it’s time to analyze your results and see if any changes can be made to improve your happiness, success and work-life balance.