Balance Your Plate: How to Find Balance in Life and Align Your Time with What Matters Most

Balance Your Plate: How to Find Balance in Life and Align Your Time with What Matters Most

Do you ever feel like your days get filled before you’ve even had a chance to decide how you want to spend them? Finding balance in life isn’t always easy — but the good news is, you can take simple steps to realign your time, energy, and focus.

That’s where the Balance Your Plate exercise comes in. It’s a powerful time management tool designed to help you see where your energy is really going and whether it matches the life you want to create.

We’ve even created a free life balance worksheet to guide you through this process. Download it, grab a pen, and let’s walk through it step by step.

Step 1: Make Your List

The first step to achieving balance is awareness.

Take a few minutes to make a list of everything that currently requires your time, energy, and attention. Think about:

  • Work or school

  • Family responsibilities

  • Friendships and relationships

  • Health and fitness

  • Hobbies or personal passions

  • Faith or spirituality

  • Community or volunteering

  • Self-care and personal growth

Don’t overthink it. Just write down what’s really part of your daily and weekly life right now. This list will become the foundation for your balance exercise.

Step 2: Divide Your Plate

Now it’s time to turn your list into a visual. On the worksheet, you’ll see a circle. This represents your “plate” — in other words, your life.

Divide it into slices, like a pie chart, with each slice representing one of the areas from your list. The bigger the slice, the more time and energy it takes from you.

For example:

  • Work: 40%

  • Family: 20%

  • Health: 10%

  • Hobbies: 5%

Be honest — this isn’t about creating the perfect balance, it’s about getting a true snapshot of where you are right now.

Step 3: Reflect on Your Balance

Here’s where this time management exercise becomes powerful. Look at your plate and ask yourself:

  • Do I like how my life is divided right now?

  • Are some slices too small (like hobbies, faith, or me-time)?

  • Are there commitments I’ve outgrown that still take space (like too much social media)?

  • Is one area (like work) taking more than I expected?

  • What’s missing entirely?

This step is about clarity. If you’re ending the day feeling drained, chances are your plate isn’t balanced in a way that supports your well-being. Reflection helps you see what needs to shift.

Why Balance Matters

The Balance Your Plate worksheet doesn’t just help you see where your time goes — it helps you decide where you want it to go.

When your plate feels aligned, you experience:

  • More energy and focus

  • Stronger relationships

  • Better work-life balance

  • Time for personal growth and self-care

  • A clearer sense of purpose

This simple exercise is the first step in making sure your time and energy reflect your priorities, not just your to-do list.

Building Your Next Step with Define

The Balance Your Plate exercise is meant to be a foundation. Once you see where you are today, you get to decide:

  • Do I want to keep living this way?

  • Or is it time to realign my energy with what matters most?

When you begin using your Define Planner, you’ll find tools to help you take what you’ve learned here and put it into practice — reshaping your days so they reflect your goals, values, and dreams.

✨ Download the free Balance Your Plate worksheet and try it today. Small steps like this can transform how you show up in your life, helping you create more balance, clarity, and intention.

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