Do you feel disappointed or exhausted more and more often? Are you afraid you’re not living a fulfilling life? There is something wrong with your current situation. You should immediately address mistakes in your lifestyle. If you don’t get rid of these problems, it can lead to depression and dissatisfaction with your life. Don’t worry, there are always ways to fix the problem. Here are some steps to help you maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Evaluate your time
Calculate the time you spend at work, with your family, yourself, and in your sleep. Ideally, it’s best to maintain intervals of 8-4-4-8. This means to put it simply: 8 hours of work, 4 hours with your family, 4 hours for yourself, and 8 hours of sleep. It might work for you as well. However, we advise you to try your own calculations and then revise them by adding or cutting down the number of hours as needed.
Remember that all the mentioned components are integral parts of your life, don’t underestimate their importance and pay attention to each of them. Imagine your life as a wheel, and its most important parts are located at different points on the arc. If your life wheel is harmoniously developed in all areas, it will roll easily. As a result, you’ll maintain a healthy work-life balance and feel happy and fulfilled. And vice versa.
Create a list of plans with your family
Think carefully about all the important family events: birthdays, your children’s recitals, various school shows, and family outings. You need to write down all the important things that will make you feel like you’re spending enough time with your family. Don’t forget to add time for surprises or just-chill-and-talk time with your loved ones. If you think about all this beforehand, you can use your precious time wisely and don’t miss out on important family moments.
Design your career
Before applying for a job, consider if you have enough time for yourself and your family. Each job has its own set of challenges, responsibilities, and deadlines. Assess your time and then make a decision. Refuse suggestions that are not in line with a healthy lifestyle.
Consider a promotion by taking on more tasks and responsibilities at work, will you really have time for that? Will it ruin your personal life? Remember that you also need time to develop work skills and no one is immune from extra tasks. Do you have time for this too? Perhaps you need to switch to a more resilient area where you don’t have to worry about catching up with growth.
Don’t always neglect your desires and ambitions: find new ways to fulfill them. For example, try different types of work – remote or freelance. Explore their benefits and decide if they fit your lifestyle. For example, when working remotely, you don’t spend much time on the road. However, you must have a separate place, a home office, so that you are not disturbed. Maybe you want to turn your hobby into a job. We devote a lot of time to work, so it should fascinate us.
If you have a bit of extra time, this may be an opportunity to spend it on yourself to learn something new and get certified. A lot of platforms like Coursera and Udemy offer certifications in different things like digital marketing, and there are other training centres that provide training in assertiveness, which is a soft skill that helps maintain work-life balance.
Once you answer the key questions and generate a plan for your career, you will feel secure about being a success and maintaining a good work-life balance.
Learn to say “No”
There are various polite and tactful ways to say “No” without spoiling a relationship. Turning down inconvenient suggestions in good time is what makes life easier. If you cannot do it – just say it. This simplifies your life and the life of your client.
Remember, that you will not have time to do everything but you will have enough time for the most important things. Refuse it, if it will make you cut down on your time with the family or on sleep.
Take breaks
Take a halt after a hard working day before you enter your house. Just sit in your parked car and meditate, breathe in for 7 counts, hold for 7 and breathe out 7, then think about 5 positive moments that await you in the family circle or, even better, do not think at all. Clear your mind for 15 minutes. You should take a break before diving into another very important sphere of your life.
What is more, take breaks after each hour. The best variant is to take a 15-minute nap. You will feel relaxed, energetic and fresh ideas will spring up into your mind. Besides, it boosts concentration and involvement in the process.
Don’t think about work while you are with your family. If you have some cool ideas, just write them down and put them out of your head for this time. You will come back to them later. Whatever problems you face in the office, you should only think about them during working hours.
However, it can be quite difficult to stop thinking altogether. Here’s a catch: if you can’t stop thinking about it, you can turn your attention to something else – your child’s face or the image of the shining life-giving sun you enjoyed on vacation. The key idea is to live in the moment and get as much pleasure from it as possible. It takes concentration, so meditation really comes in handy.
Decrease your anxiety
There is a brilliant book, which is a must-have for all. “How To Stop Worrying And Start Living” by Dale Carnegie. There are such lifehacks as: write down all your thoughts, analyze them and calculate the percentage of possibility of each event, accept the worst current of events, live in the today section of time, think about work at work.
I also grew to love the phrase: “Be a warrior, not a worrier”. Take action, think constructively but don’t fill your mind with hazardous, fruitless thoughts.
Closing thoughts on maintaining a life-work balance
Once you get a firm hold on your life you will feel power, energy and you will overcome any obstacles towards maintaining a life-work balance. Don’t give up – find new ways! Learn to concentrate and pay attention to the task at hand. Put aside all worries and learn to refuse heavy burdens, which will negatively impact your life.
This article was a guest post submission. Photos utilized are courtesy of Unsplash.
