Having a healthy work life balance is important as it reduces stress and enables you to enjoy your personal time more. Try these simple work life balance tips to organise your time better and prioritise what matters most to you. #lessworkmorelife
In a recent survey by Stylist magazine, 81% of respondents said they are now focused on creating a better work life balance.
Even those who are considering leaving their job and starting their own business are prioritising personal time and personal needs.
Let’s remember also that masses of bosses worldwide have experienced their own pandemic / WFH stress so it is not surprising to see that leaders and organisations are more motivated to help employees recognise how to achieve work life balance.
What is work life balance?
The work life balance definition from the Cambridge Dictionary is: 'the amount of time you spend doing your job compared with the amount of time you spend with your family and doing things you enjoy'.
Why is work life balance important?
It is important to maintain a work life balance as it reduces stress and enables you to be more present. It also improves your happiness, your mental & physical health and your relationships. If you have no work life balance, you could lose out on critical time for yourself and loved ones and you may experience burn out.
Now is the time to implement – and stick to - work life balance strategies that give you a more balanced lifestyle and improved happiness. Here are five work life balance tips to help you today:
1. Set healthy boundaries
Be honest with yourself about extra-curricular work requests and think twice before saying yes to something which is either outside your job description or eats into your personal time.
Stop obsessing about work or work-related stories in your free time. Notice if your mind runs away with itself in this scenario and consciously choose to think about something positive outside of work.
By repeating this process again and again is like a gym workout for the brain and will re-train the way you think.
2. Manage your energy
Unless you are a robot, you have a finite amount of energy to fulfill everything in your day. Therefore, if you overextend at work, you will have less energy for your Self, family, friends, hobbies etc.
Look at your maximum daily energy possibility as a percentage, so 100%. If work takes 75% of your energy daily, you only have 25% left for anything outside of work.
How can you reduce the energy spent on work to create the balance you are seeking? Here are some work life balance examples:
- Stick to your work hours
- Think less about work during your personal time
- Use your free time to do things you enjoy (versus feeling exhausted because work ate 80% of you today). This will naturally increase the importance, value and focus you put on your free time.
- Remember you only have 100% energy each day. Evaluate your personal needs and what time or energy is required to fully enjoy and experience them. This will help you understand how much time and energy you want to take away from work activities.
3. Re-evaluate your finances
To reduce stress and time spent worrying about if you have enough money, know your income and expenditure well.
List the areas in which you saved money this past year and note how you can maintain some or even all of this saving.
Does a saving in one area enable you to invest in another area of your life which you couldn’t before? Eg. redecorating your home or designing a welcoming home office space if you are home working? Investing in a personal trainer, coach or other type of support system?
4. Don’t try to be all things to all people
The superhero status – and the perfectionism which comes with it - is thankfully becoming a thing of the past. If you try to be perfect for everyone, what happens to you? Exhaustion? Burnout? Emotionally unbalanced? Unhappiness?
It is totally acceptable to be a good or sufficient worker, a good partner, a good parent, a good friend. You do not have to be perfect.
5. Stick to your priorities
Prioritisation creates focus by taking the not-so-important items or tasks out of your immediate thought.
If you have a long to-do list, prioritise no more than three things. Focus on those first and then select and focus on the next three.
If your mind keeps wandering back to the big to-do list, steer it back to the task in hand or your top three priorities. By doing so, you are re-training your brain to stay focused, reducing overwhelm and creating new neural pathways.
Life coaching and NLP coaching will help you create - and maintain - a healthy work life balance so you will feel positive, motivated and organised.
I am a certified Life Coach and Neuro-Linguistic Programming or NLP Practitioner. Working with a life coach and using NLP therapy will build your confidence, increase your motivation and help you get what you want in life. Book a free 30-minute Discovery Call with me to hear more work life balance tips and to discuss how my life coaching and NLP techniques can help you. I am an online life coach.
