How to Maintain a Healthy Work-Life Balance
Don’t get so busy making a living
that you forget to make a life
“Work-life balance is a term commonly used to describe the balance that a working individual needs between time allocated for work and other aspects of life.
Areas of life other than work-life can include personal interests, family and social or leisure activities.”
Work-life balance as described in Wikipedia
As seen above the definition of work balance work-life balance is simply having to balance between one’s work and his personal life.
It’s very important to have a healthy work-life balance because if there is an imbalance in the work-life proportion, then there will be a lot of stress, burnout and family breakdowns as well as health breakdowns.
In order to avoid these problems, one should always maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Given below are 10 keys that will help you to have a very healthy work-life balance.
1. Use Your Natural Abilities To The Best
Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses.
Know what are your strengths and focus on them.
If there are things which you find difficult to do are you don’t have the time to do them, then outsource it to others.
This way you can leverage the skills of others and benefit from them.
This will save you a lot of anxiety, time and make things more peaceful.
2. Categorize Your Tasks
It’s important to know what needs to be done immediately and what can wait.
You may have a to-do list with many tasks on it full stop you can divide these tasks into 4 categories.
- Important and urgent.
- Important but not urgent.
- Urgent but not important.
- Neither urgent nor important
3. Know Your Mountains And Valleys
Some people are early birds and some people are night owls which one are you?
If you are a morning person then get the tough jobs done in the morning.
But if you are a night person then get tough tasks done in the night.
The idea is to do the tough jobs during your best hours.
4. Set Aside Time For Yourself
It’s extremely important for you to have your personal time.
This time could be where you are just by yourself with no one else around. It is time for your personal refreshment and revival.
It’s time for reflection and being quiet.
This time could also include spending time with your loved ones your family and personal friends.
It’s vital to set aside this time if you want to have a balanced life.
Decide Your Working Hours And Strictly Follow Them
Have set work hours for yourself and as far as possible try to work within those hours.
If you don’t do this then you will keep on working all the time and it’s not going to do you any good.
You don’t have to be a workaholic.
Try to avoid the temptation of working even beyond the set hours.
Don’t do it unless it’s very urgent or important.
6. Organize Your Time Well
Learn to create a timeline for yourself.
Include your official activities as well as your personal activities.
Use modern technology like Google calendars, Excel spreadsheet, Evernote and many other software apps which will help you to manage your time.
It’s important to check out your time because if you don’t then someone else will do it for you.
Make it a habit to stick to your calendar.
7. Create Your Workplace For Optimum Work Satisfaction
Your workspace is the place where you spend most of your time.
Make it comfortable enough for you to work without affecting your health.
Get an ergonomic chair.
Get a wireless keyboard and mouse.
Get the proper lighting done in your office.
Do whatever needs to be done to make your workspace more comfortable for you to work.
8. Don’t Ignore Modern Technology
Using modern technology will make life easy for you.
Use modern conferencing technologies like Skype or Zoom to meet with your clients or colleagues.
You don’t have to be physically present everywhere.
By using modern technology you can be in different places without being there physically.
This saves time, energy, and money for you.
So don’t hesitate to learn new technologies that will go a long way to make your work easy and save you time and energy.
9. Build And Nurture Your Tribe
Grow your network and know your network. It will help you to have a structured network where you will be able to know what exactly is happening.
Building a strong network of people who help you to leverage their skills, talents, and experiences.
Whenever you feel less confident about something you can always ask somebody from the network who is an expert in that particular field.
This will not only help to save time but will also help you to make wise decisions.
This will save time, money and effort.
10. Take Time To Smell The Roses
Don’t be so engrossed in work all the time that you don’t do something that you really love to do.
If you are a nature lover, then take time no matter how busy you are, to get out into the woods or go climb the mountains stroll on the beach.
These activities refresh you and revitalize you.
So that you will be able to do even better work than before.
In his book ‘The 7 Habits of The Most Effective People’, Stephen Covey mentions one habit that’s very important.
He calls this habit, ‘sharpening the saw.’
By the term ‘sharpening the saw’, Covey meant that everyone should take time to hone their skills.
In our context, it would also mean taking time out for yourself so that you can work better.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would like to say that It’s very important to get help and guidance no matter how knowledgeable you are.
It would be a very good investment if you could get a business coach to help you.
He will help you to get rid of bad habits and inculcate good habits.
He will show you your weaknesses and your strengths and will help you to achieve your goals with relative ease.
Having someone to be your accountability partner helps immensely
This always ensures your personal growth.
A business coach will be that accountability partner for you.
Thus, you can do more work done in less time helping you in maintaining a work-life balance.
Maintaining a healthy work-life balance will bring satisfaction and fulfillment in your life. You will live a balanced life and your family will be very happy too.
Friends, life is not just about dollars and property, name and fame.
There’s much more to life than that.
Enjoy every aspect of life including your work, family, nature and all the rest of it.
If you learn how to balance your work and life, you will be the happiest person on the planet.