Elissa Solomon
It’s not easy to achieve a good balance between work and life. We’re living in a cost of living crisis right now and more people than ever before are taking on multiple jobs to keep themselves moving forward. Achieving the right balance between work and life is important if you want to maintain great overall wellbeing. Instead of allowing work demands to spill into your personal life – and vice versa – you have to work to achieve a better balance.
With this in mind, we’ve got a great list of the ways that you can achieve a better work/life balance, allowing you to put your all into every avenue of your life. Let’s dive in.
Set some boundaries
Boundaries are not what you place on other people but what you hold for yourself so that you can appreciate what you need. Establishing clear boundaries between your work and personal time is important, which means defining your work hours and sticking to them no matter what. If you are paid between a certain timeframe, make a point of doing work in that certain time frame and no longer. There is no reward in always staying late at work, so keep working until work time.
Manage your priorities
You have to learn to organize and prioritize your tasks based on their importance and urgency. There are techniques out there that you can use to categorize your tasks into the right areas so that you can learn where you can put your focus. By managing your priorities and understanding which tasks are urgent and important. Not urgent but important, urgent but not important, and neither urgent nor important will help you to learn where to put your focus. Once you learn to manage and prioritize your tasks properly, you’ll find it so much simpler to keep moving forward and keep that balance.
Learn to manage your time
With efficient time management, you’ll be able to balance work and personal tasks with simplicity. Using tools with calendars, planners or productivity apps, you can schedule any task that allocate the right time for work and leisure. Managing your time takes time to learn because you’ll want to give your all to your job without compromising on your personal life. Once you understand that both are important, but your life is equally as important, then you’ll be able to find that balance.
Start delegating
Both at work and at home require shared workloads. Just because you are working does not mean you also take on the full mental load in your home unless you are living by yourself. Delegating tasks at work and sharing household responsibilities will help you to find a good balance, because then you’re not spending all of your time at work over doing it and then all of your time at home overdoing it. Recognize that you do not have to do everything by yourself and even the things that you would normally do on your own. You can share that load out with other people. Get the family involved in the chore chart.
Learn to take a break
Scheduling regular breaks during your working day will help you to rejuvenate and recharge. Break times can be used to stretch, take a walk, or engage in any relaxation techniques such as deep breathing or mindfulness. When you’re at home, taking breaks from housework by indulging in hobbies and spending time with family can make you feel like you are valuable.
Set some realistic goals
When your goals are realistic, they are also achievable and SMART. Setting those goals for both your work and personal life will help you to feel like you are in control, but in a way that means you’re not overwhelmed.Having goals in the workplace is great, but you need to make sure that you have a boss who is supportive of those goals. Be sure to make sure that you are celebrating your achievements along the way, no matter how big or small they may be, so that you can stay motivated and maintain a better outlook with your job.
Communicate effectively
It’s important to have open communication in both your personal and professional relationships. If you are clearly communicating your availability, your expectations, and your boundaries to others in your life, you’ll be able to avoid misunderstandings, reduce your stress, and maintain that working balance that you’ve been hoping to achieve.If you’re struggling, speak up. And that works for both home and in the office.
Maintain a healthy lifestyle where you can
Your physical health will directly impact your mental well-being, so you have to do what you can to prioritize regular exercise, adequate sleep and balanced nutrition. If you don’t have healthy habits incorporated into your daily routine, you’re going to find it hard to boost your energy levels and reduce your stress. A healthy lifestyle is going to help you to achieve a better work life balance because the healthier you are, the more you can concentrate at work.
Learn when to unplug
You’re going to go to work all day long to stare at a medium sized screen, only to go home and stare at a smaller screen while listening to the big screen in the background. Sometimes unplugging from your screens is the best way to go forward to find some balance in life. What about hobbies? What about our social life? What about meeting up with friends and going somewhere to do something fun? You don’t have to sit around and stare at your screens all day. Not when there is a whole world out there for you to enjoy.
Get some support
If you’re finding it hard to achieve a working balance both at work and at home, you need to make sure that you have support from both friends and family. Where possible, get support from professional resources, especially if you’re starting to feel overwhelmed. When you talk to others, you’ll gain guidance, perspective, and emotional support no matter what type of stress you’re dealing with.
