How to make time for everything

Here’s something that is easy: Running your own practice, serving on the board of your kids’ school, running an annual event that has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for pediatric oncology research in the last four years, serving on several other philanthropic boards and, oh yeah, having time for your three children and spouse.

No. Of course this isn’t easy. When someone tells Elke Rubach, LL.B, CLU, that they are busy, she just has to laugh. The one-year MDRT member from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, has a lot on her plate, and she knows the importance of making time to help people in ways she felt she couldn’t in her previous career in corporate law.

Yet she’s learned to keep all of these plates spinning through teamwork and delegation — to three other team members in her office and 50 other like-minded individuals at Fashion Heals, a kid-focused fashion show which she founded to help fund research at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children — and accountability.

“I like to treat people like adults and empower them. I know that things need to get done, but I would never try to do them all myself,” she said. “But if I said I was going to do something, I track my own stuff and hold myself accountable to the same standard.”

This is especially important because no matter how much she works during the week, the weekends are for personal time; even if she wanted to work, there wouldn’t be time, what with swimming, ballet, gymnastics, birthday parties, you name it.

“My weekends aren’t boring,” Elke deadpans. “In reality, there’s not one good answer because I don’t really know how I do it all. I kind of follow the Nike slogan: Just do it.”

For more Whole Person ideas

•        “Well mind and body” (pdf)
•        “Don’t allow negativity” (video)
•        “Whole Person balance quiz” (pdf)