3 Basic Ways to Achieve and Maintain a Healthy Work-Life Balance
Today's system of work has made work-life balance progressively more elusive. Technology has virtually dissolved the line between work and personal life. Before, people would stay in the office to work overtime; they would complete the task and come home to be with family or go to the gym undistracted. Today, you handle part of the work in the office and the rest from home.
It's normal for your boss to contact you in the middle of the night to review a project. Work is a 24/7 affair. Burnout and stress are increasingly part of the lifestyle of a contemporary worker. And this way most people become far less productive without even noticing it.
How can you achieve balance between these two very important aspects? Let's mull over some answers.
Focus on what really matters
Start by understanding what really matters. Then allocate time to the things that no one else but you has to do. Delegate everything else. That's the most important first step to creating more time for yourself. Understand that you cannot utilise time that you don't have. And to have a balanced, more productive life, it has to be well-rounded. Life is not all about work, though today's "always on" job roles tend to make us forget or flout that vital reality.
Observe and respect boundaries
There's time for work, time for meals, time for workout and time for family. If you create a daily timetable for each of these activities and observe them strictly, your life will be fully balanced.
But more often than not, people allow work to encroach on the time for practically everything else. When you pick up your boss's call in the middle of the night for an emergency, that's okay. But if this becomes a habit and you reach a point where it's normal to discuss projects with your boss when you are having meals with your family, that's disrespect for boundaries.
If it's time for meals, learn to put your phone away. You'll have made the first important step toward attaining the balance. Be keen to ensure that your phone does not eat into the time you set aside to play with your child. This is going to be challenging in the beginning, but it'll get easier with time if you stick with it. You'll eventually develop the routine and drive a culture of predictability.
The reality is simple: respect the boundaries, and everyone else will respect them. If you don't, expect little respect of your boundaries from anyone else.
Pace yourself
Be sure to throttle up and put aside anything that distracts you so that you can complete tasks within set timelines. You need to be self-aware: how fast can you complete a task? Can you work with your smartphone on the table without stopping to check your social media notifications?
You'll most probably want to compromise and skip the gym to complete a project if at the end of the day, you have little to show for it. Out of guilt, you naturally carry home the pending project in your laptop computer, put everything else aside and continue your working day from home.
The problem? You dragged things along. The hours rushed by and you took no notice of it.
Use technology to your advantage. You could use your phone to book and pay for consignments, but as soon as your chat notifications start distracting you, hit the "off" button. Let the phone rest.
Sometimes you'll have to check your pace. Are you likely to make mistakes if you move too fast? If so, throttle down so you don't end up wasting time correcting mistakes you made in the rush.
Wrap-up
The balance comes with discipline. When you set the rules of your life and follow them, you can be sure that work-life balance will naturally fall into place. It may take time, but it works out eventually.