As a piano teacher, life and work tend to be intermingled and mashed together – but when that balance gets off kilter, you need to readjust.

You're listening to the vibrant music teaching podcast.

I'm Nicole Canton.

And today we're talking about adjusting your life balance and debugging it.

You can find the article that goes along with this episode at vibrant

music, teaching.com/one seven seven.

Or colourful keys.edu/one seven seven if you're not a member Hey there.

Beautiful teachers.

Welcome to the final episode of 2021.

We're going to be taking our short.

Annual break over the Christmas season here.

And I wanted to wrap up this year.

By talking about life bonds.

And specifically by helping you debug a few areas or troubleshoot that, say

if you prefer that to him, a few areas.

So that you can settle in.

If you're taking a break and feel like you're starting on a fresh footing.

For the new year for 2022.

I prefer the term life balance to work life balance because I believe.

Or I feel that work life balance brings up this image of one

thing versus the other thing.

And like, it's this tug of war between the two sides and one is winning and

the other is losing, or we're trying to weigh them up against each other.

But it never really works.

And it's a dichotomy.

And I prefer to think of it as life balance because there are

so many more things in your life.

It's not just home versus work or life.

Quote unquote versus work.

It's all your life.

The time you spend working is also part of your life.

So.

I prefer to think of it as finding your life balance.

Over time.

And doing that again.

And again, it's not about actually finding it.

It's not about a destination or getting anywhere.

It's about.

Continually and every so often looking at.

The things in your life and saying, Hmm, which things feel a little bit out

of balance, which would I like more of which are taking up too much of my time.

And am I spending most of my time, the way that I want to be right.

It's simultaneously a little question and a very, very big one.

So what we want to do today.

He's looking at some common life balance bugs as I call them.

And then how we can debug if you're feeling like there's

things that are bugging you or.

Aren't working quite right.

If you're not familiar with the word bug being used in the way that I am here.

Let me just explain that first.

I'm talking about bugs as in like code or computer bugs.

Things that get into software and into website code and these kinds of things.

That don't do what they intended to do.

They creep in here or there.

And.

They're not supposed to be there.

So we're kind of talking about that as a metaphor for how these things

occur in your life balance over time.

You don't just make a decision one day to work 12 hours a day.

It creeps and it.

Drips into place.

Until you're at a point where you realize that's what's happening

and you don't want to be there.

And it's, everything's off kilter.

Right?

So I want to share three of the most common life-balance bugs that I've seen.

And I'd love you to start thinking about the ones that might be in your life right

now, one of these three or your own right.

The first one is what we would call feature creep.

So this is a phenomenon that happens in a lot of startup

companies and you lead developed software and tools that people use.

I'll bring him back to piano teaching in a second.

But what this is about is when.

You create a new software?

Let's say you want to build a calendar for vets.

That shows the animal's symbol on the screen.

On the actual calendar item so that you can easily see who the animal is without

clicking into it because you work in a vets and you know, this is super annoying.

It's just an example.

Right.

But let's say you want to build that calendar.

And you start out and you incorporate those symbols and it works great.

And if you bet start using it, but then someone asked you to, if you would

add a payment processor, cause they're also frustrated about that in their vet

practice, that their current payment processor doesn't work the way it should.

And there's all these problems with it.

So they asked, could you build in like a simple PayPal button into the calendar?

So you go ahead and do that.

And then someone else asks you for another feature, maybe the ability to email the

pet owners without clicking away from the screen or leaving the calendar.

So you integrate that.

Now you see what's happening here.

Different people are requesting different things.

That seem useful and probably are useful.

But if you keep adding all of these things, you're going

to be left with a monster.

You're going to be left with this calendar that does everything, but

no one can use it because so many features have crept in useful features.

Good features, but there's too many now.

And no one can make use of the calendar because it's, it's too cumbersome.

So you might see where I'm going with this.

This is something that happens again and again for us music teachers, too.

We add things into our studios.

And we keep adding new things and more things into our studios, into our life,

whatever you're looking at at the moment.

But you add these things in and you never take away the old thing.

And so over time, your studio, your business is so stuffed.

That it's not performing the function it's supposed to.

Let me give you an example.

Let's say you add in.

A cool new recital idea.

One year, right?

You're going to do an exercise at Halloween and it's going to be

costumed is going to be awesome.

You added in goes great.

So you keep that going.

And then the next year you have a cool idea for a charity fundraiser recycle,

and you decide to put that in February.

So you add that in.

It goes great.

You keep it.

You keep doing this for years, but you'd never take away any one of the recitals.

Well, you're going to end up with a recital a month.

And the thing is, although each one of them individually is pretty cool.

And very appreciated by your families when they're all there.

They're not that appreciated.

And you're just running yourself ragged.

So take a moment and think about it.

Is there, are there too many features in your studio?

Are you trying to do too much?

Are there things that you've added in, in recent years without taking away other

things, it doesn't have to be recitals.

It could be anything, it could be payment options.

It could be things you've added into your life.

Like hobbies.

Is there any area where you've crammed too many features in.

And that it's no longer serving you or that it's no longer appreciated

by the people it was meant to serve.

Bug number two that I want you to watch out for is a four, four is one of the

ones that you might be familiar with.

You go to a website, you click on a link.

You may have done this of my site.

And there's nothing on the other end.

It just says page not found.

That is what we call a four.

Oh for code.

Um, it's as if a postman arrived to an address and there was nothing there

on the other end, it was just a field.

So, how does this happen?

First of all, on websites, you might be confused as to why this even happens

is because we moved the address.

It's usually because they link has changed.

And the content you're expecting to find there is actually at a different

link, but you still have the old one.

That's the most common reason.

So how can you have a four oh four in your studio?

This is where you have miscommunications with someone in your life.

Where are your business?

Most commonly piano parents, right?

You think something is obvious.

And the parent doesn't.

And so you're both getting to these four or four pages where it's not

found, but you don't even realize you're clicking on a broken link.

Maybe you think it's obvious that practice should happen every day or that a light

up keyboard is just a toy or that PA.

VNS shouldn't have giant acrylic nails on their fingers.

But maybe your studio families don't.

And the thing about these things is they don't always present.

So obviously it's not always a gigantic acrylic nails that

you can see from a mile off.

Sometimes.

It's under the surface.

And you're seeing another issue.

Like the students' motivation or their progress or their

reading skills or something.

And it's actually caused by a proper much further back, but you don't

know that that broken link is there.

And so you're not addressing it.

Are there any areas of your life where you feel like there's that disconnect?

There's old information linking.

Two.

Nowhere.

When it should be moved to a new page.

Have a think on that metaphor and see if anything comes up for you.

And then my last bug to share with you.

Is simply outdated code.

If you're a studio or something in your life was built for Ms.

Dos.

Shout out, hands up.

If anyone remembers Ms.

Dos.

Um, if you're a studio was built for Ms.

Dos and your student's brain, or the person you're living with

brain or your current life is running on the latest Mac M one.

There is going to be a disconnect.

It's not going to work.

Your old policies or procedures.

Your old way of doing things in any area of your life.

It can be something that served you then.

It can be something that was wonderful.

But we evolve.

Our lives change.

So it might've been totally fine and wonderful for you

to work on Saturdays before.

But now you've joined roller Derby.

And so you want to attend the group trainings bad day.

Maybe you were happy to take cash payments before.

Because there was a bank right down the street and you walk by it anyway

every day on your little walk.

But the banks closed there and now you have to go across town.

It can be silly little things like that that can eat up your week.

This is what I mean by debugging it's little bugs that you don't realize

have creeped crept into the system.

That are taking up your time.

Taking up your mental bandwidth.

Remember that this is your business and it is your life.

So if something is not working for you, if you have some out dated

code or code that never worked in the first place, Change it.

So how do we change it then?

How do we debug?

Once you find these bugs and believe me, you will find them again and again,

it's not about squishing them once.

And for all, it's about continually checking in.

When did you find them?

And maybe this is a great time of year to do this.

It's time to prioritize and Irene really prioritize.

Prioritization is supposed to be about the most important things.

So this is not an excuse to write a, to do list.

Don't you dare.

This is about writing a list of the things that actually mattered

to you, and it needs to be short.

You need to actually choose which things come first.

And therefore, which things don't, which things do you need

to cut all to altogether and which things do you need to minimize?

This is not an easy question or an easy solution.

If the scales feel unbalanced for you right now.

You're going to have to remove some things from the other side so that

you can lift those things higher.

It hurts to remove things, but you will not regret it.

If you truly are prioritizing the right things in your life.

Once you have decided what your priorities actually are.

You need to set up some new rules.

I don't know about you, but most people.

Can't just decide something's a priority and then stick to that forever.

Things will come up and what's in front of us, tends to take precedent over

things that aren't immediately apparent.

So set yourself some rules.

An example of a rule in my studio that prioritizes my health and my energy

levels is my minimum breaks rule.

I set this up years ago.

To be in my studio weights, a minimum of, or sorry, a maximum.

Uh, four students in a row.

Or two hours, whichever comes sooner.

That's my rule for breaks.

I won't go longer than that without putting in at least a 15 minute break.

Because I know the effect that has on my energy.

I don't want to get to the end of the day.

Every Tuesday, for example, I'm feel like I'm just drained.

Because what about the rest of the students that week?

And what about the other things I do with my time?

So that's what I mean by a rule, it has to be something that is clearly defined

in advance of the situation happening.

So that when you get there, you already have that rule.

Now, some of us need to take this further and that's totally fine.

And you might need some extra accountability.

If, you know, you're going to need help sticking to the rules.

Think about what might work best for you.

For many people, having an accountability, buddy, someone to

help you stick to these things.

Is going to be great.

That's not my particular style, but I know for many people that works really well.

So if you have someone in your life that, you know, We'll be

comfortable calling you out on things.

Then that's a great option.

You can also do things like set reminders on your phone or alarms

or put hard stops on things.

If one of your goals is saving, then transfer that $50 or whatever it is,

you're aiming to save into an account.

You cannot access.

There's nothing wrong with babying yourself a little bit.

Sometimes if it's going to give you that increased mental bandwidth

for the rest of your life.

This is not about being weak or strong or trying to use your willpower.

It's about making parts of your life easy that you can make easy.

So you have willpower left for the things that.

You actually need to exercise Your one thing this week is to

identify one book in your life balance and make a plan to fix it.

It can be something teeny tiny, but make a start.

Make a plan to fix it.

Hold yourself accountable.

If you need to.

And see how it goes.

And let me know what feels out of balance in your life right now, or

what you're doing to increase your life balance at the moment, I would

love to hear from you in the article.

Comments that go along with this episode at vibrant music, teaching.com/one

seven, seven or colorful keys dot.

Slash one seven, seven.

I will see you there and I will see you in the new year.

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