These days, it’s almost impossible to separate your working life from your personal life and maintain a healthy work life balance. Work consumes so much of our life that many of us don’t even realize how insidious the far-reaching effects of this situation can be.
If the spouse asks how the day went, again we regale them with the gossip and unfairness at the workplace. It just never ends.
It’s no wonder so many people are stressed out and can’t find any respite from the daily work concerns. Let’s look at a few ways you can mitigate this problem and bring about work and life balance in your life.
This applies to 2 areas: your workload and your stress.
If you can’t complete your work while you’re at work, there may be productivity issues that you need to address. Or maybe your workload is just too much to handle.
If you’re an entrepreneur who works from home, it’s even more important that you set fixed working hours and rest hours or the two will merge and you’ll find that you just can’t switch off.
When it comes to work stresses, try not to bring back work problems and tell your spouse about them. You’ll just be worked up all over again and might even end up having an argument.
Block off all work commitments, stories, stresses, etc. once you leave work.
Procrastination will only stress you out later on when the work starts piling up. It’s the enemy of success and you’ll have thoughts at the back of your mind about your workload piling up.
You do not want to be in a situation where you need to bring work home to complete just because you were putting them till a later date.
The bedroom is only for sleeping and/or sex. That’s it. Doing paperwork, reading statistics, etc. on the bed is poor sleep hygiene.
Your sleep patterns may be interrupted because your mind can’t tell if your bedroom is a place of rest or for work.
It’s these little things that make a world of difference when it comes to drawing a line between your work and home life.
If you work a day job, learn to say no when colleagues try to pass off some of their workload on to you. If you’re free, you may help out.
But if you’re already tearing your hair out because of your own impending deadlines, now is not the time to do favors.
You’ll have to set boundaries with colleagues too, if you wish to preserve your sanity.
Routines are great whether you have a day job or work at home. Waking up at a fixed time, starting work at the same time and leaving work at the same time will lend structure to your day.
Watch your time and energy closely. By demarcating your working life and personal life, you’ll be able to get the best of both worlds without being off-balance.
Trying to maintain balance in your life can be an arduous task if you’re not employing the right strategies.
This situation of being behind the 8-ball daily can take an emotional and mental toll on you, if you let it. The good news is that you can run your day effectively by adopting a few tips and applying them daily.
You absolutely MUST have a plan. It doesn’t matter if you have a day job or you’re working from home. A plan is crucial… and it’s even more important if you’re self-employed.
Not having a plan is akin to sitting down at a restaurant and discovering there’s no menu. What will you do? What will you order? It’s just confusion.
Like Dale Carnegie said, “An hour of planning will save you 10 hours of doing.”
And it all starts by planning tomorrow today. Decide what tasks need to be done. Usually, it’s best to list 3 tasks that MUST be focused on FIRST. These are usually the most urgent/important tasks and need your full attention.
Get them done ASAP. Everything else can come after that.
Write down your plan on paper or you could have it on your computer… and stick to the plan.
If you have a day job, then it’s understood that you’re stuck at your desk from the time you start work till you clock off. However, if you work from home, you have more freedom to structure your workday.
There’s no right or wrong answer here because we’re all different. What you need to do is decide if you’ll work for 2 hours or so and take a 2-hour break to do your household chores… and return later to work again for another 2-hour stretch.
While the duration you choose to work doesn’t matter, the way you choose to do it matters. If you’re working in intermittent blocks, you’ll need to plan your schedule carefully. When will your working hours be and when will you take breaks?
Write it all down so that you can stick to the plan. Do NOT approach this haphazardly or else time will slip through your fingers and you won’t know where the day went.
When planning your day, try not to take on more than you can handle. List the 3 of the most important tasks, 3 less important tasks and 3 maintenance tasks.
The maintenance tasks could be household chores such as cooking or laundry. The truth of the matter is that you’ll never have enough time to do ALL that you want to do.
So, it’s best to focus on what truly matters.
Do make time for yourself to relax and have fun. Don’t spend 14 hours a day working just to reach a lofty goal in future. You just may end up sacrificing your happiness, social life, marriage, etc. only to discover that once you reach your goal, all you’ll have is your goal and nothing else.
Life is about balance and living in the now. So, take time to enjoy it and don’t be so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.
Apply these tips and take control of your day. It can be done if you plan it well and plan it in advance.
“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.”
– Alexander Graham Bell
Whatever you want in life will require discipline to achieve and maintaining a healthy work life balance is a small part of that. And if you want to know more about harnessing the power of self-discipline, then check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 🙂
