Advanced technologies and emerging digital innovations consistently transform the way we live and work giving more flexibility and convenience and bringing remote job capabilities to yet another level. At the same time, though, this pushes even more challenges onto us and makes work-life balance a daily struggle for many of us.
Despite flexible and adaptive schedules, working from home often blurs the line between personal and professional life. Many remote employees tend to work even more than their in-house teams and find themselves burnt out in the end.
If you feel like you miss something important in your life due to being swallowed by your job, you’ve come to the right place. Below, we’ll explain how to gain a healthy work-life balance in a fast-paced modern life.
What Is Work-Life Balance?
In general, it’s an idea of maintaining a person’s work commitments and obligations in harmony with their family responsibilities, hobbies, sports, self-care, and any other out-of-the-work activities and events. It embraces the ability to set priorities, efficiently manage time, and properly allocate personal energy and resources between work and leisure.
Those who successfully balance their work and personal lives have lower levels of stress, more well-being overall, higher productivity, and job satisfaction. With the demands and restraints of the technologically-driven society, it is a necessary component of modern living.
That said, work-life balance is an individual thing, and there is no one-size-fits-all formula. In other words, it’s not about equal time distribution between work and personal life, it’s rather about a harmony that matches individual needs and aspirations.
Why Is It Important to Balance Job and Life?
For many people, work is the biggest priority that eats up most of their time. Though high-performing and dedicated employees are appreciated and valued by companies, a great life’s shift toward a job can do significant harm.
Work-life disbalance goes far beyond work and negatively impacts all spheres of the person’s life, including:
- Professional performance and productivity;
- Mental health and emotional stability;
- Quality of sleep;
- Relations with loved ones, kids, and friends.
In the meantime, professional and personal life harmonized to perfection has a whole bunch of advantages that are hard to argue:
- Improved well-being: People who have enough work and leisure in their lives and catch up with their personal priorities are overall happier, more energized, and less stressed. They have high stamina levels and feel better both physically and mentally;
- Stronger and healthier relationships: Gaining the skill of balancing professional commitments and personal interests, people become more confident, open-minded, and good-tempered. Maintaining reliable connections with work, they spend quality time with family and friends giving their near and dear more attention and building stronger relationships with them;
- Boosted performance: A balanced personal life enables people to be more concentrated and productive at work since they can recharge after work at home via the positive emotions they feel by communicating with their families and doing the things they like;
- Enhanced job satisfaction: Via customized work-life balance, people get better control of their lives overall. They feel more relaxed, less bewildered, and more satisfied with their jobs;
- Better creativity: Working under the constant pressure of their own disbalance, employees are usually less attentive and less productive. Meanwhile, a balanced life fuels their striving for innovation and experiments since they have time to explore life and the world around them via their favorite activities and hobbies;
- Minimized risk of burnout: Overworking is exhaustive and stressful. By hitting the harmony point between their personal interests and work routines, they sweep away the pressure and stress, thus reducing the risk of burnout.
As you can see, a good work-life balance ensures benefits for personal and professional spheres alike, while non of them dominates.
Roadblocks to Attaining Work-Life Balance
Most often than not, achieving the so much sought harmony is hindered by the following factors or aspects:
- Extended working hours: Longer working hours are considered to be a norm in many companies today. Over 90% of professionals work over 50 hours a week. Thus, they have less time for themselves;
- Technology: Technology makes remote work maximum efficient and productive by enabling employees to stay connected to their teams and projects even when out of the workplace. At the same time, this blends personal aspects and professional commitments pushing people into sacrificing life for work;
- Job demands: Specific job requirements such as around-the-clock availability for healthcare and emergency services or additional responsibilities stipulated by the employer make maintaining a work-life balance a challenge;
- Poor flexibility: Many employers still fail to come up with remote work conditions, flexible work hours, hybrid schedules, or shared responsibilities forcing workers to compromise their personal interests for work;
- Family responsibilities: Small kids, disabled family members, or elderly parents might require care, which is time-consuming and exhaustive at times. And it makes finding a balancing formula even more difficult;
- Burnout: Permanent stress and overwork might cause heavy emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion leading to apathy and significantly lowering energy levels. It’s a so-called professional burnout that ruins the balance and leads to losing interest in work;
- Financial strains: Financial burdens and debts often push people into working more leaving fewer resources and less time for realizing their personal goals and interests;
- Social pressures: In a race for success and professional achievements, people work long hours and contribute more time and effort to work to get a promotion or hit the desired revenue level. Striving to fit social standards, they run themselves ragged.
How to Know Your Work-Life Balance Needs a Tweak
While it seems that everyone understands the sense of work-life balance, maintaining these aspects in a symphony is easier said than done. It calls for persistent effort and ongoing adjustment. But first of all, you should realize that you need improvement in this area. Here are a few most obvious signs of imbalance:
- You don’t care for your body: You have problems falling asleep and then get up late. Your life energy is low, and you are not active. You lack time to cook and eat a healthy diet or even have no appetite at all. You ignore health issues and chronic conditions since you have no time to visit a doctor;
- Your emotional state is low: Random mood swings, anxiety, irritation, and despair are all signs of stress and depression;
- Low interest in work: You work without dedication and have no enthusiasm to complete the tasks. It seems that everything has lost sense, and you simply don’t care;
- Feeling incompetent: No matter how hard you work, it seems like you still lag behind and are not good enough at what you do. It makes you consistently worry about the quality of your job and your performance results;
- Life and work clung together: You feel like you should be available in an around-the-clock mode and feel guilty when you take some time off for your personal staff. Most often, it happens to those who work from home or under a hybrid schedule.
Strategies to Maintain Balance Between Work and Life
Should you notice any of the above-mentioned signs of disbalance and unhealthy work bonding, it’s high time to get things back under control. And there are a few strategies that will help you stay on top of your life and work.
Outline Boundaries
Sticking to limitations and rules at work, people often fail to organize their own life. However, clear and strict boundaries between the job and personal sphere are an absolute must to have enough time for what matters to you.
You should learn how to disconnect from work and let yourself communicate with family, go to the gym or yoga classes, relax in the SPA, or simply have a drink in the bar with friends.
Start with refraining from answering calls and emails beyond work time, limit your working day by specific hours, and schedule your holidays and days off.
Make Self-Care a Priority
Anything that promotes and maintains your physical and emotional health should be on your regular to-do list. It could be sports, hobbies, meeting friends, spending time with kids, or going out with your spouse or partner. And there should be no excuses for delays or refuses.
Just make it a solid part of your life and you’ll be surprised how inspiring it could be. Investing in your well-being is essential, and your work performance depends on this too.
Manage Your Time More Effectively
Don’t let your job take you over. Categorize your tasks and work on them in the order of priority. Don’t try to embrace multiple tasks at a time and refer to time management techniques to schedule your day, week, and month in a manner that will keep you on track and will spare time for your personal life.
While planning your work routines, keep in mind your personal priorities, such as hobbies, family time, exercises, and good sleep. The key is that you shouldn’t try to squeeze your own interests in between work goals, but you should rather start carving time for doing what you enjoy.
Delegate Work
Accept the fact that you shouldn’t be a do-it-all person. There is no need to. Consider your strengths and complete the tasks you are really good at and let yourself delegate other work to colleagues. This way, you’ll reduce your workload and get more free time.
Notably, this rule works for personal life as well. Engage your family members in chores they can help you with. Ask for that help and don’t strive to be perfect in everything. Sharing responsibilities is normal.
Utilize Technology Wisely
Technology has a lot to offer in all concerns. It makes our life easier and more comfortable in many different ways. So, it’s no wonder that all modern businesses widely rely on technology and innovations.
A valuable working tool, technology could be stressful and overwhelming too. Make sure you use it to strengthen your work-life balance. Don’t stay in touch all the time and avoid being bound to your gadgets. Don’t be afraid to unplug and to be out of access when you are out of work.
Saying “No” Is Normal
Don’t take on too much. Trying to be a multi-tasker and always striving to assist others, you can end up feeling exhausted or even incompetent. You don’t have to be a perfect colleague for everyone. Learn to decline requests that interfere with your own schedule and put your work-life harmony at risk.
Saying “no” makes you neither a bad person nor a bad employee. Refusing extra work, you get more time for family and personal interests and avoid overworking, which might negatively impact your productivity.
Make Breaks
Take regular breaks throughout the day to recharge your energy and reduce stress. This can include short walks, stretching, or simply taking a few deep breaths.
Use your lunchtime to enjoy your meal or do something that will distract you from work and help relax. Even quick few-minute breaks can help improve concentration, reduce stress, and make you feel more involved.
Concentrate on Results
How often do you find yourself completing a million minor tasks a day and getting nowhere in the end? Be rather an achiever than a doer. Set attainable clear goals and move to them. Don’t sputter your effort and energy on doing the maximum. Focus on delivering valuable results instead.
Moving on in a step-by-step manner and embracing your objectives will make you feel satisfied and give your confidence in your competence and professionalism.
Summing Up
To be a high performer at work, you don’t have to spend all your time at work. You should rather strike a perfect balance between your professional and personal life and do your best to maintain it. Make this your prime priority, and it will become a game changer for your work results too.
The only thing to remember is that maintaining a work-life balance is a continual process calling for constant effort and attention. Build the above-mentioned strategies into your daily routines to make your work and personal interests match, not clash.
