Balancing life and work |
Finding Balance In Your Life
Most of us are interested in finding balance in life. Those who are not, are the ones who already have found that crucial balance.
Work-life balance is about achieving an equilibrium between professional and personal life. As a crucial component of a healthy work environment, an ideal work-life balance prevents burnout at work, helps strengthen personal relationships, reduces stress and its negative consequences.
Are Americans' work and life balanced?
The standard workweek comprises 40 hours, which entails working for eight hours a day.
However, according to the Harvard Business Survey, ninety-four percent of U.S. service professionals work for more than 50 hours per week and many people work during the weekends as well. Forty-eight percent of Americans say they are workaholics, while 72 percent prioritize work-life balance when looking for a job.
The pandemic has added additional layers of complexity in terms of finding balance in life. A survey shows that 65 percent of those who are working remotely, are putting in longer working hours than before.
Why do you need to balance your work and life?
Health professionals believe that an extended workday compounds stress levels that can negatively impact all areas of life, including relationships, happiness, physical and mental health.
Consider these statistics:
- Fifty-one percent of people blame poor work-life balance for missing important life events.
- 68 percent of employees agree that a lack of work-life balance negatively affects their motivation and morale.
- 77 percent out of thousand employees in a survey on work-life balance experienced burnout at least once in their current job. About 50 percent experienced burnout at work more than once.
- Overwork puts employees at higher risk of stroke, coronary heart disease. Depression, and anxiety.
Work-Life Balance Tips
Finding balance in life can be challenging, with your responsibilities towards work, your family, and your community competing for your time and attention. According to the article " Steps to Be Successful In Life" from Inveigle Magazine, to be proactive in life, it's essential to know your objectives and find the motivation to follow your path to success. Within that search towards your goal, balance is crucial.
Here are some smart work-life balance tips that can help you bring back the balance and optimize your personal and professional life.
1. Acknowledge that you cannot accomplish everything every time
Acknowledge that you are not a superpower, and let go of your need to be perfect. The resources you have, including energy, time, and money, are limited. While you want to accomplish many things and please a lot of people, this is neither practical nor possible.
Aiming for perfection is a major cause of stress, and so is trying to solve all problems for others. Stress can lead to greater problems for your health, hair, and relationships. Therefore, all those troublesome feelings that cause stress, like perfectionism, should be dealt with practically.
The habit of perfectionism becomes destructive and leads to burnout. On the other hand, aiming for excellence is a smart goal to have.
Develop your own ideas for success |
2. Develop your own metrics of success
Many people report feeling pressure in meeting others' expectations regarding money, social status, a plum job title, and the hours spent at the office desk.
Instead of relying on others' definitions, reinvent yourself and develop new metrics of success. For instance, the amount of time you spend with your loved ones, the time you devote to self-care or relaxation can be your new metrics.
3. Manage yourself
What exactly does “time management" mean?
We all know that we cannot control time or 'manage' it in any way. What we can manage is the way we utilize time. Cramming too many things in your day may give you a sense of accomplishment, leading to exhaustion, frustration, and low morale in the long rule.
Managing yourself is all about exercising your power of choice regarding what you do and what you leave out in a day and lifetime. It is about being proactive and understanding what you have control over.
Take some time for yourself |
4. Saying 'No' is okay
Once you define your metrics for success, you will need to prioritize activities that are aligned with these goals. This will mean you will need to be okay with saying 'no' to certain things to make time for what you want to do.
Whether it's your demanding boss, friend, or family member, cultivating the art of saying no when there are unreasonable demands is vital. While refusing emotionally and physically draining tasks, explain the reason behind your refusal.
Harvard Business Review experts recommend sticking to the facts to avoid burnout at work. For instance, tell your boss that your overloaded work schedule will make it difficult to do a good job with a new project.
It is also good to diplomatically limit interactions with less constructive people at work. It may mean excusing yourself when the office chatterbox corners you for a chat when you have other things to attend to.
5. Unplug
Technology makes our lives easier and improves connectivity in multiple ways: telecommuting negatively also limits interactions with less constructive people at work, diplomatically, on social media, or by email.
On the flip side, technology has encouraged an 'always online' culture. A study shows that we check our phones 2617 times at a minimum and up to 5,427 times daily.
An email usage study found that people spend 209 minutes a day going through their work email and 143 minutes on personal email. This translates to almost six hours a day.
Researchers have also found that decreasing the time spent checking emails and on phones can reduce stress levels. Avoid sending or checking work emails, when you are with your family, and ensure you spend quality time with your loved ones.
Turn off email notifications and designate time to reply to emails in batches for a specific time each day. Watch the digital well-being statistics on your phone to know how much time you spend using it.
6. Delegate
Focus on activities that you value most and specialize in.
Outsource or delegate everything else. Talk to “key stakeholders” such as colleagues or employees at work, your family members, or friends. Prioritize tasks that you want to handle while delegating tasks that can benefit other people.
These work-life balance may look easy to follow but like most new-year resolutions, trying to make huge changes all at once across all areas of life can backfire. The secret to finding balance in life is to take one step at a time and start small. Once you experience success, build up from there. The last thing you want is to get stressed about following the work-life balance tips!
Author: Patti Quigley covers home and family issues for The Balancing Act. For years, she was an entertainment journalist for influential newspapers and magazines in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. Her byline has appeared in dozens of publications, including the LA Times, Us Magazine, Newsday (New York), Electronic Media (Los Angeles), TV Guide (New York), The Boston Globe, and the Orange County Register. She was a reporter for The New York Post, the Los Angeles Daily News, and was a former features editor at Good Times Weekly Newspaper. Patti Quigley is a writer and lifestyle correspondent.