It is not easy to achieve a perfect work-life balance in our life. Regardless of what you have achieved professionally, your achievement does matter to maintain a healthy and well-living environment where you live.
On the other hand, if you have a wonderful home and family, you have to prioritize your family and your well-being on top of the list. It will hit your career even to a small extent, but it will.
So, the easiest to say and most challenging to achieve is a state of equilibrium in your life and work. You have to prioritize the most important things that only you can do first and then gradually filter out items with lesser value or be done without you, or not that significant that can’t give up.
How does a healthy work-life balance look like?
Work-life balance is not just a theory. It has practical implications, which can improve your potential and engage every source around you.
It is achievable, workable, and enjoyable too. Moreover, practicing a better work-life balance could be an example for others around you as well.
If you are working 9-5, you have a considerable portion of the day left to maintain your house chores, health, sleep, and family. What happens usually we get lethargic of routine office work and make our life monotonous similarly.
Suppose you are an entrepreneur with stressful targets to achieve. It is challenging to maintain a better work-life balance to fulfill family, relationships, friendship, kids, and social life as well.
Almost all of us have heard in our life that money can not buy everything. If you compare what you have achieved through wealth in your life and the most precious things money can not buy.
You will be amazed that there is also a balance between them, there are certain things that you cannot get your hands on, yet you have money. Indeed satisfaction, enjoyment, and simple living are some examples of them.
Tips to Achieve Better Work-Life Balance
Time management
Make thumb rules that are not compromised in any case. For example:
Strict working-hour rules: 9 to 5 means you have to or should leave your office at 5. It does not indicate whether you have met the day target or not, and you will go. No, You need to be such efficient in organizing the office work to save time for you automatically.
Prioritize tasks: Whatever you plan at work, it should have some value in terms of priority. For example, the most critical job that needs to be done on an emergency basis. Then urgent and finally routine office work. In between, do not forget to take lunch, tea, coffee, and small stress-free breaks.
Reduce meetings – force emailing: If you an attendee in meetings, be well prepared. If you are the one who organizes meetings, you should have an agenda at least. In this case, address critical issues before briefings. Then ask the owners of the issues to give a summary and send the details to you via email later on.
I believe that it is much easier to organize tasks or to-do lists by using emails. Most of the email client apps and software allow you to organize incoming information into a built-in calendar, flag emails as ready, or set their priority. It is time-consuming and you will have searchable details in your inbox available at any time. Emailing makes life easier at your office.
Share responsibilities with co-workers – subordinates: Learn to share not only happiness but also your workload. Keenly observe who is capable of what responsibility in your team and colleagues, then properly share overall tasks and deadlines so that all of you meet the deadline on time together.
Set time-consuming rules: Search for opportunities to set rules that help consume time practically not to waste time at work.
Proactivity
Self-initiated behavior that endeavors to solve a problem before it has occurred is called proactivity. Find a piece you are good at work and take all responsibilities for it. Be professional in your niche, and soon you will find yourself in the leading position. You will be more confident, and you will do what you like. If you like, at the end your favorite tasks will be dedicated to you, other staff will go to your colleagues to deal with.
Setup standard procedures
The more organized you are, the less time and effort will be wasted.
Define and organize tasks: Once you have learned what the mission is, define yourself and your team. If you have more than one task at a time, again organize them according to their priority.
Lead subordinates: Find subject matter experts, somebody who is familiar or happy with the given work, and dedicate the tasks accordingly. In other words, distribute the task to associates according to their expertise, and lead them to follow in your footsteps.
Set up discipline in work: However, opinion plays an essential role in achieving a mutually achievable goal, common understanding about policies are vital. If some disciplinary pointers are set, subordinates can learn and follow procedures easily, therefore everybody has a boundary to work in. Also, there are several methods to collect feedbacks that help you identify shortfalls. Identified issues can be turned into policy to avoid wasting everybody’s time and effort.
Take a break
Breaks are essential to maintain your work-life balance and sanity too. For this purpose, you need to take breaks, either a coffee or a tea break, read magazines, or do anything to clear your mind. Do not let your thoughts stack up in your mind and make you procrastinated.
Outsource your work or parts of it
Outsource some of your workload or to-dos (chores, cooking, etc) so that you have time for more critical tasks at work or valuable time at home. Things that need you to be present are more important. Read “The four-hour workweek” by Timothy Ferriss to learn to be professional in outsourcing various things in your life.
Exercise constantly
The best way to reduce stress is to workout. It has countless benefits, and you can set your personal goal, for instance, weight loss, muscle building, fitness, etc.
The time you are working on yourself is your me-time. It improves confidence in you and in the long run it has several advantages eighter in and out of the workplace. It is a combination of productive work and leisure time, see everything has the balance to maintain.
Do not spend your time on useless things
Hard staff. Needs some willingness to change some habits of yours. I believe it is best to avoid useless things that do not have any productive value and do not support in maintaining an excellent work-life balance. I mean, watching tv, spending a lot of time on social media, or give our minds to things we cannot control, like global issues and politics just make our lives bitter.
Find happiness in your loved ones
The significance of family and loved ones is unquestionable. They deserve your best quality time, meanwhile, your personality becomes more stable. Ergo it has a huge impact on your effectiveness at work. So, if you haven’t started yet, you should start new habits with your loved ones such as outdoor activities, play with kids, go for a picnic, or a day out. In short, be active at home.
Live simply
Living simply does not mean that you give up all the luxuries in life. It is finding a balance between your income, needs, and necessary expenses.
Know your needs, for example, do you need a car more or a vacation? If your kid is ready to go to college, do you have enough resources to send them to their favorite school? Or you should buy the latest iPhone.
Do not chase false success. Set up short-term goals that put you on the right path, which may lead you to slow and steady instead of fast but unsuccessful in achieving the right work-life balance. I highly recommend reading Thoreau’s “Walden – Living in the woods” where you can get the idea by his experiment.
Make your family part of your achievements
Learn to know yourself and your family members in more depth. Share your dreams, ask their opinion, and be part of their career or personal goals as well. Find a way to support each other. It is always easier to go together, rather than walking alone.
What is the benefit of having a better work-life balance?
Well, I would like to share that distributing equal time to your work and personal life is not achieving a work-life balance. If you have that perception in your mind, you are getting it all wrong.
For me, work-life balance is finding the best possible way to utilize your time for the welfare of your work so that it will not hurt your life, you could excel in your career, and make resources out of it, which in return is vital to attain particular wishes of your family and life.
Your career has a significant impact on personal fulfillment and happier life. Improved work-life balance is like a flexible string that you can easily stretch according to your career and commitment requirements for the rest of your life. You will see positive changes when you try to find a peaceful balance between your work’s demands and the content of life. In list:
- Better mental health and wellbeing will lead you to the way where you can attain maximum positive outcomes of life and work opportunities;
- Optimum productivity level will allow you to perform exceptionally well in both aspects;
- Greater loyalty and a sense of commitment will develop charisma in your personality;
- Intrinsic Self-motivation will support you while facing challenges in your career and life;
- The idea of a better work-life balance will ultimately increase your Happiness and Peace of mind.
Conclusion
When creating a schedule that works for you, think about the best way to balance work and personal life. There is no such thing as called perfect work-life balance model to follow. Still, you can improve your self, life, career, and goals to make a realistic approach towards improved and better work-life balance.
Small steps in a career instead of leaving personal life behind are more practical than just procrastinating over an unrealistic or low work-life balance. Live life fully in all aspects of it!
Better work-life balance is a mix of health, happiness, family life, friendship, social life, self-confidence, productivity in work, a clear mind, clear goals, ability to focus on essential things in life.
Therefore, I would say: Do not wait. Start making changes in your work and life and success will be yours if you are persistent enough.
Now, it is your turn.
Which tips will you make yours? Do you have your ones? Leave your favorite tip for us in the comments below.
