What smart, seasoned CIOs know

While the CIO leaders we interviewed acknowledged and elaborated on the growing demands of the job, they are all problem solvers, and each has developed techniques for managing both the workload and the stress.

"You have to leave some white space in your week and perhaps in every day, where you aren't so totally booked that you can't stop and reflect, or you can't have that unscheduled meeting and just stop in at somebody's office or cubicle to talk with them about an idea," Skarulis said. "You have to learn how to work smarter; you have to learn how to acquire information in better ways."

Skarulis said she has also found the delete key for e-mail.

"You can't read everything," she said. "You have to be judicious."

Skarulis also surrounds herself with "buddies" in the industry, colleagues she can call anytime.

"We ask questions of each other. 'What are you doing about this?' You'll get responses back from everybody. Those kind of sources will save you enormous amounts of time."

When someone from the network calls, those are the call you have to answer right away, Skarulis said. "You keep the network alive by being a good network participant."

Branzell, who teaches life-work balance at CHIME's CIO Boot Camp twice a year, says he is seeing people who manage their schedules for their work and personal lives together.

"What we're starting to see is people who just manage their schedules for their whole life," he said. "So, the art of scheduling becomes for everything in your life – personal time, family time, recreation time and work time."

Branzell advocates this type of scheduling and he practices what he preaches.

"As much as our CIO Boot Camp is important for development of soft skills and leadership skills, one of the things that people get the most out of is a reminder that life must come before work. And, if it's the opposite, it will cost you your life," Branzell said.

Ed Marx, who also teaches at the boot camp, applied the concepts of strategic planning he learned from the business world and his professional role to his family life, with an annual strategic planning retreat.

"We go someplace nice, just to get away," he said. "We have mission and vision, and values that we talk about. We talk about our objectives for the year. We measure the past year. We talk about new objectives for the coming year"

"It just helps keep us centered and focused," he said, adding that it also helps with decisions such as, "Do I work 80 hours a week, or do I work much less – and focus on my children or dating my wife?"

Christian relies on an assistant to help him with scheduling, and he also employs technology to help him track projects. He's created a test tracking project management site that he uses with his team to communicate globally.

It's important to have a system that works for you, he said, and it is critical to schedule some downtime. "You can't be on the job all the time."

Texas Health Resources is very much focused on wellbeing and care for the individual, Marx said. So, Marx concentrates on his team and how he can help make it successful and make sure team members have the right tools.

"Obviously, if they're successful, they have the right tools and they're well taken care of as a whole person that certainly helps me," he said. "But more importantly it helps us achieve our organizational mission and vision.

Also, Marx tries to differentiate between those things strategic and those things distracting.

"We're all hit with a lot of great ideas, but some are distracting," he said. "So, I always make sure that whatever I focus on is really aligned with where our organization is headed. And that really eliminates a lot of things that I'd spend my time doing that don't necessarily add value."

Marx pointed out that everyone knows what happens to organizations, IT shops, or industries that don't have a plan. There are statistics that compare companies that have mission and vision to guide them with companies that do not.

"When you compare them, whether its for stock price, whether its overall performance, compared to those that don't have a plan, the ones who have a plan are much more successful," he said. "Why wouldn't you do that for something that is more important in life – and that's yourself and your family."

Schade tries to reinforce the principles of life-work balance for herself and her staff. "I'm not great at it," she admits.

However, she has taken several concrete steps toward greater balance. She reminds herself and encourages her staff to take their vacations.

"When you get back you can pick it up again, and you really need those breaks," she said.

She is working with her staff to apply "lean" concepts to meetings, to eliminate some meetings, or at least reduce the time spent in meetings, perhaps even to replace them with "huddles" to track the day-to-day issues, and use the time more effectively and in a more focused way.

Last year, Schade, a grandmother of three (one, a few days old, 5 months old, and 3 years old), launched "Operation Baby Blanket" and completed her goal of crocheting a blanket for each of her grandchildren.

"This is after not having done anything like that for 30 years," she said. "There would be a point every night when I would stop work, turn off email and I would turn to my work on the blanket because that was a priority for me. Yes, she completed all three blankets.

She detailed the experience in her blog, where she likens Project Baby Blanket to an IT initiative.