How To Achieve Healthy Work-Life Balance
For most people, achieving an optimal work-life balance is the trickiest task because more and more people are now doing long hours and never off work because of technology making things accessible around the clock. In a Harvard Business School survey, it was found that 94% of professionals worked 50+ hours a week with more than half of them working for more than 65 hours a week. When you’re spending this much time at work, it’s natural to find it impossible to maintain a work-life balance.
The Importance Of Achieving Work-Life Balance
By maintaining a healthy work-life balance, you will notice positive benefits not only as a person but also as a worker. You will feel healthier when you manage to rein in your overworking, as this will significantly lower symptoms of stress usually associated with overworking. Your health will improve when you don’t have to worry constantly about delivering your best performance. It will help eliminate the feeling of exhaustion, which in turn will strengthen your immune system.
You will also be able to perform better at work because of better health. Experts have also found that a healthy work-life balance will also help build interest, broaden minds, and improve your energy as well. Overworking will result in negative emotions, which greatly restrict thinking and creativity. Therefore, working on bringing a balance back to your life will also help you bring a lot more energy to your workplace.
Rules For Achieving The Needed Work-Life Balance
So many people will tell you so many things to help you manage your personal life as well as your professional life in a better way. But, understanding the following point will help produce better results.
1. Know That A “Perfect” Work-Life Balance Is Not Possible
The sooner you help you understand that there is nothing “perfect” when you talk about achieving a work-life balance. You just can’t have a productive day at work and then getting home earlier to have fun with your friends and family. Well, you may have an exceptional day once in a blue moon, but just don’t expect it to happen every day.
You have to teach yourself to not strive hard for finding the perfect schedule. Instead, your goal should be to find a realistic one. A good schedule will ensure that you get to focus more on work on some days and, on other days, you spend more time on pursuing your hobbies or spending time with your loved ones. Make yourself understand that you can’t achieve balance each day – but it is achieved over time.
You have to be flexible and give where you stand at the moment a good thought and ensure you’re just moving in the right direction to achieve your goals. Understand that sometimes your kids would need you more, and you should be there for them. On other occasions, you’ll have to travel and focus more on work. You can achieve the desired balance when you’re open to redirecting.
2. Learn To Unplug
There is no denying the fact that technology has really made it possible to live your life more comfortably, but it has also created a sense of constant accessibility. It means you just can’t have work off of your mind for a single second because your smartphone will keep telling you about the latest emails or messages you’re getting from your boss or colleagues. Thinking about work when you’re with your kids, friends, or family is what disturbs the balance. You have to devote yourself to one task. Make it clear that you won’t mix up two things. If you choose to stay plugged all the time, the workday is never going to end.
It really helps to turn off your phone and focus more on the moment you’re having with your family. Learning to enjoy the moment is what will help you achieve that much-needed work-life balance. If you can’t find the strength to turn off your phone, those notifications will keep adding an undercurrent of stress in your body.
So, remember, when you’re watching your kid’s football game, there is absolutely no need to keep sending texts to manage your work. It will feel harder at the beginning to show resilience and develop a habit of not reacting to the updates coming from the workplace. Keep trying and be less reactive to those notifications to use technology in the right way.
3. Exercise And Meditate
Finding time to exercise and meditate will work wonders in achieving work-life balance. Most people do exercise until their calendars starting to fill up, and the first thing that goes out the window is exercise. Understand that exercise helps you in more ways than you might know. By working as a stress reducer, it helps you be on top of your game. It triggers the release of feel-good hormones, endorphins, which will improve your emotional wellbeing. Meditation will help achieve the same.
When you’re in an emotionally calm state, you will be able to make rational decisions and help find the most realistic schedule for yourself. You can choose any form of self-care, be it yoga, exercise, or meditation. In fact, you can do deep breathing exercises to improve your breathwork if you’re that pressed for time. Completion of everyday tasks is certainly one of the aspects of finding a balance between work and life, but understand that having a fresh mind, body and soul is equally responsible for finding and maintaining that balance.
Other Important Tips To Help
The abovementioned golden rules will surely help bring more stability to your life and ensure that you continue to prosper while having happy friends and family. Here are some other tips to keep getting good results from your efforts to achieve a healthy work-life balance:
Don’t follow other people’s work habits. One common mistake people make is that they change their schedule following other people’s work habits. Don’t do it because you never know if the other person is already struggling with an imperfect work-life balance. Choose what works for you.
Learn to prioritize tasks. Know you can’t do everything today, so task management is important. Learning to prioritize is important, especially when you’re juggling a number of tasks. You can divide your tasks into subcategories. For instance, work on something that is urgent and important. The next place should be of tasks that are important but not urgent. Then, choose to work on tasks that are urgent but not that important. And, you can always wait a bit to finish tasks that are neither important nor urgent. But, again, it all comes down to how you rate different tasks even when you’re trying to put them in different categories.
Be sure to do what you love. In other words, you should not put your hobbies in the last category of “neither urgent nor important”. Finding time for yourself will ensure you stay happy and feel energized for a busy day ahead.
Never say no to your annual leave. Taking time off will help you return with more vigor. Interestingly, there is no need to go for a foreign vacation, as just chilling with your friends or watching something nice on Netflix will work too.
