Work-life balance is a delicate endeavor, and it’s one that many of us struggle with. Depending on your company culture, your vocation, the way you were raised to view work, and your individual personality traits, you will experience varying degrees of challenges in this area. Additionally, we must acknowledge that our country’s work-life culture greatly impacts the expectations we experience from others and impose upon ourselves.
If you are dissatisfied with how well you are currently balancing your time, especially if you are feeling close to burn-out, today’s tips on how to maintain a good work-life balance can help you start reclaiming your personal time. We hope you do; your peace and wellbeing are worth it.
1.) Analyze Your Current Work-Life Ratio
It’s time to do the math. Break down your weekly waking hours into work-related activities and personal time. Your commute, lunch break, and time you spend checking your email and answering your phone from home should all be categorized as work time.
Once you have analyzed your work-life time split as it exists, are you pleased with the division of hours? Is there enough time in your life for you, your family, your pets, and your social life? If not, taking the following steps may help.
2.) Create Parameters That Suit Your Situation
For many jobs, there are set hours that you must work. In such cases, it should be easy enough to decide (and tell others) that you will not work outside of these set hours unless there is a legitimate emergency—though this would still entitle you to take time off to make up for the extra time you put in.
However, if you set your own hours, work from home, or work a non-traditional schedule, it can be more complicated to create a clear divide. Whatever your situation, it is up to you to figure out the right healthy parameters to support you as both a worker and as an individual.
3.) Establish Firm Boundaries
Once you have decided on your individual ideal parameters, it’s time to establish boundaries with your employer, your supervisor, and your clients; essentially, anyone who may expect to be able to reach you to request things from you needs to hear about your updated boundaries.
If you won’t be available after 7 p.m. and before 9 a.m., over the weekends, and on your personal days off, say so. If you won’t answer emails outside of office hours, be sure to make this known.
Your boundaries are your responsibility to establish and enforce. Remember that communicating them once will likely not be sufficient to maintain them indefinitely! You must be prepared to stand firm on your decision, say no to people, and say phrases like, “Per my previous communication regarding my work hours” repeatedly.
4.) Streamline Your Workflow
If your personality is one that leans toward working too many hours, you likely feel stressed out by the sheer amount of work you need to complete at any given time. While you will always have some work-related stressors, you can make yourself feel at peace about the time you spend tackling tasks by streamlining your workflow.
Utilize email and document templates, follow a clear schedule for your day that divides your time across categories, and free yourself up using technology anywhere you can.
5.) Schedule Recurring Leisure Activities
Do you find that you have a tendency to back out of time you have designated for self-care? You may benefit from joining an exercise class, book club, cooking course, or dancing class—anything that means you have to commit to a schedule doing something you enjoy.
Bonus points if your scheduled leisure time begins right after your work hours end. This prevents you from staying late at work or answering just a few more emails from home!
6.) Maintain Habits for Health
A healthy you will undoubtedly be a happier, more productive you. Get plenty of sleep, be sure you’re drinking enough water, get your vegetables and protein in daily, and move your body. Even a brisk 30 minute walk can have substantial benefits for your physical and mental wellbeing. These basic components of health may seem cliché and even a little boring, but there are endless reasons why every doctor and mental health professional you’ve ever spoken to has stressed the importance of doing each one consistently!
No matter who you are, you won’t be healthy or truly mentally content unless you take care of yourself. If you’re exhausted, stressed, yet staying up late worrying about the future, get back to basics for several months and see how you feel when you make your health a priority.
The Takeaway
Work is non-negotiable for most Americans. Even if you’re lucky enough to work a job you truly enjoy, you won’t be able to maintain your happiness and bring your best productivity levels to the table without first tending to your work-life balance. Remember the old adage about putting on your own oxygen mask on an airplane before helping others? It applies to you tending to self-care and preventing work from taking over your entire existence.
IMPORTANT: This is not a one-and-done endeavor. Rather, this is a continuing practice that will require you to guard your personal time and push back against work when you feel it encroaching into your home life. The results, though, will be well worth the effort you invest. It’s time to go to bat for yourself! Anyone in your life who matters will be glad you did.
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