3 Practical Ways to Achieve Work-Life Balance
How often have you vowed to create and set boundaries to protect your peace at work…how's that going?
66% -- 26% -- 77%
These percentages account for the number of Americans who work during the weekend, take home their unfinished work, and ultimately experience burnout in their current position. When is the last time you have thought about how your work affects your life and causes you to stress, overwork, or worse…burnout? Here are 3 tips that you can implement immediately to gain control of your life and attain the work-life balance that you want.
Set & Maintain Boundaries
The act of setting boundaries seems to have become one of those cliché terms that people overuse, like "toxic." However, setting boundaries is essential. The work culture in the United States has continuously been fast-paced and focused on production and efficiency. To that end, many people are sacrificing their time by forfeiting PTO days, leaving late, and coming into work early. Our personal relationships, health, and overall sanity often are the areas that suffer the most. However, COVID-19 has served as a wake-up call for many—understanding that allowing work to be the center of our universe is detrimental. While often companies say it is "just business," the fact remains that we need to stop sacrificing ourselves for jobs that don't care much about us!
Setting boundaries in the workplace can look different depending on your role or responsibilities. However, the ultimate goal is for you to feel comfortable saying no. Be mindful that you cannot and should not say no to duties that are within your job title, but you should feel comfortable not going above and beyond if that's not what you want to do. Unfortunately, though, many companies are not as woke when it comes to this understanding, so think critically about what you can afford to say no to in the workplace? Will saying no improve your daily mood? Will it allow you extra time to spend on a more desirable project or to go home early and eat dinner with your family? Ultimately setting boundaries is a deliberate act of choosing yourself. But, do so, responsibly.
Block Your Time
One of the best pieces of advice that I have ever heard was the time management strategy of "blocking your time." "Blocking your time" literally means to open your calendar and designate blocks of time that you will work on specific tasks. When blocking my time, my first goal is to allot time to my most undesirable tasks—ones that I most often procrastinate in completing. What’s that? Checking my email!! I plan to check my email 3 times each day, in the morning, midday, and before I leave for home. This allows me to stay on top of my emails so that it does not become a chore that sucks up my time.
The next thing that I block into my schedule is LUNCH! How many times have you worked through your lunch because you have so much to do? Or perhaps you were in a great groove of productivity? Please, please, please, stop doing this. (I'm talking to myself as well!) We must take time to regroup midday, grab lunch, go for a walk, or meditate. Some other categories you might want to block into your schedule are: following-up on outstanding tasks from team members, tackling your to-do list, filing back papers, cleaning off your desktop, etc.
Realistic To-Do Lists
The last tip to assist in achieving work-life balance is the old faithful to-do list. Often, we make to-do lists with countless tasks that, even on our most productive days, we are unable to complete. Have you ever thought about creating a weekly to-do list and then distributing tasks throughout the week? Not only will this allow you to digest your “to-do’s” in a more bite-sized way, but it will also enable you to prioritize items aligned to deadlines or important dates. Creating smaller bite-sized to-do lists allows your workload to seem manageable. You can appropriately distribute your energy throughout the day, add or complete quick tasks at the end of the day, and finally assign to-dos for the following week if they are not urgent. Not only will shortening your to-list make you feel more accomplished, but it might also increase your productivity.
For more information on how to apply time management strategies to your schedule, feel free to set up a free 15-minute consultation call so that we can help you! https://calendly.com/proresumetailor/15min
Diana Williams, Resume Tailor
