With more and more employees working from home in current pandemic times, it’s vital to maintain a healthy work-life balance. If you can maintain a good balance between work and your personal life, you won’t be as susceptible to stress and, in a worst-case scenario, burnout.
This may seem like an easy task to figure out, but too often, work takes precedence over our personal lives. The desire to excel in our careers can push us to set aside our own well-being.
That’s why creating a harmonious work-life balance is vital to improving our physical, emotional, and mental well-being, essential factors that we also need to advance professionally.
Here are 6 tips to start improving your work-life balance and help you prioritize your overall well-being:
1. Set Timetables
One of the best ways to manage your time is to use a calendar and set timetables. The first step is to prepare a list of what you need to do, i.e., setting your goals for the day/week.
Then, you can split up urgent and less urgent work tasks and devote certain time to each task. And the key is to commit to these timetables and not get off track.
In addition, you can take this a step further and include family commitments, such as birthday parties, school meetings, sports activities, etc., to streamline your work-life balance even more.
2. Know Your Highs and Lows
Are you an early bird that loves to get things done first thing in the morning, or do you need a few hours to get your brain and body going?
By knowing what hours you’re the most productive, you can assign high-concentration tasks to those hours and do the more manageable tasks the remaining time.
Realizing your limits and strengths will help you improve your work processes and get more done in shorter amounts of time. It prevents downtime when the brain fog takes over and makes you less productive.
3. Have Set Work Hours
Having set work hours goes hand in hand with setting timetables. A clear schedule will help you balance work and personal time better since you know when you need to focus on work and when it’s time to relax and do the things you love.
Mixing this up may have you end up working until midnight to complete your to-do list. And not sleeping and taking care of your health will cause burnout before you know it.
4. Find Personal Time
This takes us to the next topic of finding personal time somewhere in your workday, which is super important to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Try to take regular breaks to give yourself time to handle any personal issues that may arise throughout your workday. The feeling of lacking time to deal with personal matters can cause stress and make it difficult to focus on work.
Setting aside time for your personal life also includes finishing work when you’re supposed to. You need your free time to recuperate and participate in other meaningful activities to keep the motivation up and be less susceptible to stress.
5. Learn to Say No
I can’t state enough the importance of learning to say no. Saying “yes” to everything will soon become overwhelming and cause you to burn out faster than you think.
For instance, if you need to work late constantly to complete your tasks, let your boss know that your workload is unsustainable. And know that it’s okay to say no to taking on new projects and extra commitments if it will interfere with your personal life and well-being.
6. Take Extra Good Care of Your Health
With this risk of sounding harsh, you’re of no use to anyone if your health isn’t with you. You won’t be able to do a good job, nor be the family caregiver you want to be.
But if you ensure you get enough sleep and include exercise into your routine, your health will benefit and help you perform at your best.
Remember to reward yourself for your hard work by treating yourself something special now and then. Whether it’s your favorite bakery or a day trip somewhere, you’d always wanted to go, the extra release of endorphins will improve your overall health and spirits.
Over to You
Work-life balance can be tricky to achieve and maintain. But by using these 6 tips, you can start finding ways to make work feel less consuming and free up time for the other important parts of your life.