This post is by Jesse Langley.

Maintaining a healthy balance between your work and personal life can be difficult. Modern office workers can have an especially tough time with this because work can often occupy a sort of no man’s land between the two.

When you begin taking work home with you, the line between recreation and work begins to blur. Taking occasional breaks from the laptop and the television can actually improve your work performance and help keep you sane.

Unplug more often

It’s easy to lose track of how much time you’re spending online. We typically spend a large chunk of our day in front of the computer only to get home and fire up the laptop again.

The next thing you know, the evening has flown by and you’ve spent most of your day at a computer. Facebook newsfeeds, CNN, and BBC apps giving you updates on your iPad while you’re working on your laptop can easily take over your free time.

Setting aside some technology-free time can help you detox from the constant barrage of email and social media status updates.

When we’re not careful, heavy social media use could be impacting us in other ways as well. The tendency to tweet and post Facebook status updates constantly often causes us to be less than perfectly thoughtful about how and what we’re communicating.

Researchers suspect that heavy texting can change the way that some high school students process and deliver information when engaging in writing assignments. Communicating only through brief tweets and status updates may result in more difficulty expressing complex thoughts and ideas when writing.

What to do with your new-found free time

As I began to take more work home, my personal recreational activities started to suffer. I had previously been a heavy reader and always ran at least three times a week. But as I spent more time with my laptop and iPad, I read and ran with less regularity until finally I was doing neither.

But more time spent working doesn’t always equal better work efficiency. Stepping away from your desk and going out for a brisk run does more than simply burn calories and keep you in shape. Exercise elevates endorphins in the brain and enhances a sense of well-being and positive outlook on life. This can translate into better work performance and task execution.

Reading works in several ways to benefit your work life as well. In addition to being a great way to discover new ideas and perspectives, reading also doesn’t turn the reader into a passive recipient of information like watching television tends to do. Reading a good book is often the exact opposite of our multi-tasking methods of modern work. Being able to focus on one thing completely is relaxing and rejuvenating. Reading frequently helps me get back to developing thoughts more thoroughly and working with fewer distractions when I get back to work.

Schedule your reading and exercise breaks

If you don’t make a point of scheduling time for your exercise and reading you’re likely to procrastinate or end up skipping it entirely. Be sure to start slow and ratchet things up as you get into a good routine. Exercise at least three times a week if you can manage it. Find a form of exercise that you enjoy and you’ll be more likely to stick with it.

The same goes for reading. It doesn’t matter as much what you read, just that you’re reading. It doesn’t have to be highbrow literature to be beneficial. Try to find an hour a day to read. Once you’ve incorporated an exercise and reading routine into your daily activities you’ll likely feel that your life is a little better balanced.

Jesse Langley lives near Chicago. He divides his time among work, writing and family life. He has a keen interest in blogging and social media and is an advocate for online training he also writes for www.professionalintern.com.

This post is by Ali Luke of AliVentures.

Do you ever wish you had just a bit more time for yourself?

Perhaps you’ve got a project you’d love to finish. It could be anything— writing your novel, creating a website, designing a Flash game, making a rug—so long as it’s important to you.

The problem is, whenever life gets busy, your project gets shunted aside—and at the rate you’re going, it looks like you’re never going to finish.

Or maybe you have a particular hobby or interest: surfing, golf, knitting, video games, fencing, cooking … something that you really enjoy. You just never seem to have time for it.

What can you do?

Realize that it’s important

Your big project or much-loved hobby might seem unimportant. After all, you’ve got work, chores, family, friends, commitments…

Plus, the folks around you might not get what it is you want to do. I’m a writer, and trust me, I know that sitting down to write several thousand words a day is not most people’s idea of a good time!

However frivolous, geeky, weird, or dull your project or hobby might seem to other people, it still matters to you.

It’s important.

You have the right to do what you love for at least a few hours each week.

And you’ll find that when you do make time for what really, truly matters to you, you’ll be a happier person. If you get just a couple of hours at the weekend to relax with your knitting or to focus on your new website, you’ll have more energy for the rest of your life.

So, how exactly do you go about finding the time?

Join a course or group

When you belong to a course or group that meets regularly, you’re almost certainly going to find the time. A fixed appointment in your diary is much easier to keep than a vague commitment to “play golf sometime this month.”

A course with teaching, assignments and deadlines can be a great way to take things to the next level—plus it helps show your family and friends that you’re serious.

A group of like-minded people, whether locally or online, can be incredibly encouraging. Simply being around others who value writing/cooking/games etc. is motivating – and members of the group may well help keep you accountable.

Find your best time of day

Some projects require a lot of concentration and energy: anything creative, for instance (like writing, designing, composing) or anything that’s quite academic (like studying for a new qualification).

If you’re working on a project like that, it’s crucial to find a time of day when you’re naturally focused and energized. For me, it’s mornings: I try to do the bulk of my writing between 8am and 11am. For you, it could be early evening, or late at night when the rest of the household are asleep.

Even with an “easy” hobby, you’ll want to find a time of day that works well. You might need space to spread out your art materials on the kitchen table (not ideal if your partner is trying to cook) or you might need quiet (not ideal if your kids are running around screaming).

Deliberately set aside time

Don’t wait for free time to suddenly appear: it won’t. Your life is already full—even if some of the things filling it are “watching TV” and “surfing the net”. You might need to cut something out in order to make more time for what you really want to do.

One of the easiest—and most powerful—ways to find time is to deliberately set it aside. This is easiest when you look a week or two ahead in your diary: you’ve probably got a free evening next week or a few hours at the weekend that you could spend on your project or hobby.

If you don’t set the time aside, you’re just going to fill up your life with all the usual things. So grab your diary now, and look for just two hours this week that you could spend on you.

It’s not selfish, and it’s definitely not pointless.

And you never know what two hours this week could lead to…

Ali Luke used to commit a couple of hours a week to her writing—and now she makes her living as a writer and writing coach. If you’d like to finally get your blog going or write that novel you’ve been daydreaming about, check out her free mini-ebook How to Find Time for Your Writing.

This guest post is by Tom Ewer of Leaving Work Behind.

It has probably crossed your mind on more than one occasion that it is much easier to spend money than to make it. Success and failure share the same relationship. It’s just so damn easy to fail. That is why “success” is coveted by many, but achieved by few.

You define your own success—it is an entirely subjective concept. If your idea of success is to start reading one blog post a day, then you’re probably feeling pretty good about yourself right now. However, for the purposes of this list, we will consider success to be achieving what I call your Endgame.

So, without further ado, this is what is holding you back.

1. You don’t try

This is the cold-blooded killer of success. If you’re applying yourself in entirely the wrong fashion, at least you are applying yourself in some way. If you simply don’t try, then you will never succeed.

A lot of people defeat themselves before they have even begun. There is a prevailing mindset amongst the majority that success is ultimately unachievable, as if those who are successful just got lucky. Fortunately for us, luck isn’t that prevalent—but neither is hard work or persistence—and that is why many people never get to where they want to be.

2. You’re not productive

You might think that you are, but you may be fooling yourself. Merriam-Webster defines productivity as being “effective in bringing about”. In the context of this article, productivity equals being effective in bringing about success. When you consider your actions, are they all truly geared towards your success? If not, then your productivity is not what it could be. Every time you start a task, you need to ask yourself if it is taking you one step closer to success.

3. You don’t know what you want

You may be able to tell me that you want a million dollars in your bank account, but you would be fooling yourself. You ultimately want to be successful (by your own definition) because you think it will make you happier. Money can facilitate happiness, but it does not in itself create happiness. You should be thinking about what makes you happy, not what you think makes you happy.

In order to generate long-lasting motivation, you need to truly know why you are trying so damned hard. And take it from me; it is not because you want a million dollars sitting in your bank account.

4. You give up too easily

There is one screamingly obvious reason why not all people achieve their desired level of success: a lack of patience. This has become even more prevalent in the internet age—if instant success doesn’t land in your lap then it clearly will never come.

Successfully negotiating the path to success requires an enormous amount of patience. In order to have sufficient reserves of this highly valuable quality, you need to know where you are going. Which leads us to…

5. You don’t know where you are going

You might have a clear definition of your planned success, but do you have any idea how to get there? Again, simply saying “I want a million dollars in my bank account and I am going to get there by being an awesome internet marketer” is not the true answer to the question.

Can you provide me with a step by step plan as to how you intend to achieve success? If not, then you do not know how to get there, and you will likely fail. You need a plan.

6. You work hard … and fail

Rarely is success so easily avoided than by endeavor being spread far and wide. Success requires a concentrated effort. If your efforts are diluted across various projects, or various obligations, your chances of success are greatly diminished. You can work yourself into the ground and achieve very little.

Before you consider anything else, you need to have a better understanding of what commitment you are prepared to invest in your success. It may not be easy at first to comprehend how much you will need to commit in order to reach your goal, but it will become clear in time. One thing is certain, if you commit 100% of what is required, but that 100% is divided over numerous projects, you are still likely to fail.

What else blocks the path to success?

Now it’s over to you. What do you think? I have given you six stumbling blocks that lie on the path to success. What others have you experienced?

Tom Ewer is the owner of Leaving Work Behind, a growing community of likeminded people with a unifying goal – to create scalable and sustainable online incomes. He aims to leave his career in property development just as soon as his online pursuits can support him. If you enjoyed this article, then be sure to sign up to Tom’s RSS feed.

This post is by Kirsten Simmons of  Personalized Productivity.

Let’s think through your day.  When you arrive at your desk, what’s the first thing you see?

Is it the pile of paper comprising three weeks worth of files that you’ve put off sorting into their alphabetical hanging files?

Is it the 100+ emails that would only take a moment or two to reply to, but that you haven’t had the motivation to dive into?

Image courtesy aliwest44, licensed under Creative Commons

Is it the blank sheet of paper where you were supposed to write today’s to-do list before you wrapped up yesterday, but you were so relieved to just get to the end of the day that you forgot all about it?

What do you feel when you see that pile of files, that overflowing inbox or that blank sheet of paper?  If you’re like most people the response is guilt, frustration, or even a muted resignation.  Because despite your best intentions, you’ve failed yet again to maintain even the most basic organization or productivity system.  You’re just an utter failure.

Hold it right there!  Think for a minute and tell me, where did you get those systems from?  Did you make them up, or was it from a book or article trumpeting the ease of this or that system for skyrocketing your productivity and getting your life back on track?  How could that person—who’s writing that book without ever even meeting you—how could they possibly know that this system will be right for you?

They couldn’t.  And not only do they have a minimal chance of selecting the correct system for you, there’s a very high probability that their personality is such that their system will never work for you.

Let’s think through your day again.  What if you arrived at your desk and found nothing there that shouldn’t have been there?  What if your e-mail inbox had just a few messages that had come in overnight?  What if you sat down knowing exactly what you were going to do and how you were going to do it?

Would you feel better?  Would your stress be lower?  Would your productivity increase?

When it comes to productivity and organization, there are four important personality types.  Each type has distinct preferences for organizing their physical space, managing their time and optimizing their productivity.  And yet over 99% of productivity books and products are written by one type—the one that naturally gravitates toward “traditional” organization strategies like alphabetical filing and schedules planned to the quarter hour block.

Discovering your productivity personality and creating a system that works with your brain frees you from the stress and frustration of trying to maintain your old system.  Your new one will come naturally, will scale to your work load and adapt as you move into new projects.

Let me tell you a bit about the types and give you some tips to get you started right now. There is no reason to ever feel like a failure when it comes to productivity again.

The Fantastical

If you’re a Fantastical, you’re a creative problem solver who thrives on variety and originality.  You’ve been known to become so engrossed in your projects that you forget appointments, meetings or even meals!  The biggest key in a Fantastical organization system is space—you have to see all the components of a project in front of you, so structure your office space accordingly.  Shelves above your desk are a great way to do that, but don’t fall into the trap of using them for binders!  Put your project piles there instead so you can see everything you need to.

The Environmental

If you’re an Environmental, you’re the person that everyone around you depends on.  Your warmth and caring shines through in everything you do, and you worry when anyone is feeling sick or uncomfortable.  As such, you’re constantly shifting your schedule and your priorities to help out someone in need, and it drives those around you crazy!  Instead of trying to conform to someone else’s quarter hour schedules, plan out your day in blocks of at least two hours.  That gives you time to work on what needs doing while still stopping to lend a hand if someone needs you.

The Analytical

If you’re an Analytical, you’re motivated and goal oriented.  You rely on facts and figures rather than emotion, and you’re great at seeing the big picture.  Your most effective productivity strategy is learning how to focus your time on high value tasks while delegating the rest to assistants or others on your team.  Your goals will be achieved when everyone around you plays to their strengths, so make sure you know what those strengths are and do your best to see that the work gets divided accordingly.

The Structural

If you’re a Structural, then congratulations, organization comes naturally to you!  You’re the one everyone turns to when something needs to be planned, and when brainstorming your first action is to start making a list.  You’re most comfortable in a routine, and you can become overwhelmed by interruptions or unexpected increases in workload.  The good news is that there are a LOT of systems out there for you to choose from, so take a look at what you’re doing now and ask how it could possibly break.  Then do some experimenting and find ways to streamline your systems and routines to handle unexpected situations.

Once you’ve identified your productivity personality and altered your systems to fit, you’ll find that your day flows easier, your stress is reduced and all the time you spent struggling to maintain someone else’s system is suddenly free for whatever you’d like.

Kirsten started researching personality and productivity out of curiosity one day last October, and before she knew it she had a business on her hands! Are you interested in learning more about your type?  Come visit Personalized Productivity to take our free quiz to determine your primary type and get customized advice to begin building your system.