What is work-life balance and how to improve it?
Find out in our article what work-life balance is, why it is important, how not having it can affect you and how to achieve it.
Written by
- Redaction Team
- Professional Career, Professional Development
Table of Contents
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Carlos Opinion on Work-Life Balance
Learning about time management is important to have a well balanced life.
Workaholics might see time, as there is never enough time to achieve goals, as in some people might think that time flies when one has fun.
Which is the right number of hours to work? And actually, that might not be the proper way of seeing things.
As politicians, might discuss if the work week should last 40 hours rather than the 48 hours that are worked in Mexico, the discussion should be turned into how effective and efficient is the work force.
Should and must people be the full 8 hours at one place, and also be fully effective those 8 hours per day, regardless if they are the 40 or 48 hours per week, surely they are not effective the full 8 hours per day.
The focus should be in becoming people who achieve results regardless of the time, so that the person can learn to allocate time doing the things that she or he really want,
If one want to stay at the office 4,5,6,7,8 or more hours, it should be a decision taken between company and employee, and not as a imposed law, where in some cases people just go to the bathroom to “make time” until their exit hour, or so that the day goes faster.
Would it be better that the spare time that one is wasting in coffee breaks when not needed, or those unneccesary toilet trips, gets oriented to the real activities that the person really want to be developing.
We are still far for creating a proper culture that generates a healthy work-life balance between communities.
One that is result oriented, rather than just filling sits from 9-5 or the hours that are asked.
For sure, even for us who are developing passive income to free up time, still developing our purpose is an activity that requires time management to avoid burnouts, regardless of how much passionate and committed to our projects we are.
What is work-life balance?
When we talk about work-life balance, we are referring to the satisfactory management of the work hours we are having with those we use to enjoy our personal time in private life.
And precisely so that there is no kind of imbalance, the most important thing is to know how to dedicate enough time to both aspects without compromising the performance in either of them.
As Jim Rohn says, when you work, work, when you play, play. Don’t mix the two.
Basically, the concept invites us to give the best of ourselves to the company or job we have, but also to dedicate the rest of our time to those activities, hobbies or habits that we like.
And we are not only talking about a balance that has the ability to improve the way we work, but also the way we relate to others, among many other aspects of our daily lives.
The importance of improving your work-life balance
The importance of achieving work-life balance lies in the fact that such balance has the ability to generate positive effects on both physical and mental health, and even in the professional sphere.
And we are talking about advantages that not only benefit employees, mainly by reducing the levels of stress they face, but also employers.
Companies that are able to ensure that such a balance exists for their employees usually gain employee loyalty, improve their production levels and also manage to reduce the percentage of absenteeism.
The impact of a work and life life imbalance in personal life
Being short on time is not necessarily the only consequence of an imbalance, although it is the most noticeable. But in depth we can encounter some other factors.
The impact of an imbalance between work and personal life is already beginning to be seen in the productivity of the person, and it is that physical and mental exhaustion does not allow the fulfillment of tasks, however minimal they may be, in optimal times.
In addition to that, it may be the reason why thoughts are not happening clearly, which would lead to errors even in the simplest tasks to be developed.
Of course, all of the above would be leading the worker to lose his professional reputation, or to cause the company losses not only in production time but also monetary losses depending on the level of the same.
Other consequences of the imbalance between work and personal, on a more social level, is the loss of important or extraordinary family events, which often leads to a feeling of exclusion or damaged relationships.
Similarly, it becomes very difficult to cultivate friendly or sentimental relationships with people who devote most of their time to work, since the other little percentage will be needed to rest.
But all that stress is also reflected in our immune system, since it has the capacity to worsen any symptom of any health disorder.
Strategies to achieve work life balance
Having a broader understanding of what it is, its importance and how it can affect us, let’s move on to strategies for achieving a smooth but stable work-life balance:
Set daily goals at work
If you do not have in your mind what are the goals you must meet every day in your work area, but those in the medium or long term, it is very common that you find yourself working more than the account.
To avoid this, it is always good to have a work agenda where you clearly establish the objectives that you must meet every day, so that you are not unconsciously proposing to yourself improvised goals that demand more than you can give.
Delegate responsibilities
Delegating responsibilities is not only a strategy that can help you at work, but also at home. All those tasks you are carrying out will be lighter if you have a team or a support network.
The idea is simple, and is based on not having to carry all the responsibilities. In addition to allowing you to free up some of your time, you will also realize that it is a key aspect to improve coexistence both at work and elsewhere.
Establish your priorities
Another skill to achieve work-life balance has to do with knowing how to prioritize. And not only at work, since in the aspects of your personal life there are also issues that you cannot afford to negotiate.
Take all the tasks you have at work, along with the chores that go hand in hand with your personal life, and put them in order so that you can focus on one at a time, but all end up taking some of your time to complete.
Express yourself
It’s easy to identify that the balance is tipped more towards the work side, and not the personal side, when we feel that we are overdoing it, that we don’t have enough time, or that we simply can’t find a way to organize our chaos.
When we reach points like this, it is best to be able to communicate it with our colleagues and superiors, so that they can help you organize yourself better, or even with professionals who are able to lend you a hand and make the scales more equitable.
Allow yourself flexibility
By this we don’t mean that you have to accept everything as it comes, and not worry about it. But understand that not everything always has to happen as, or when, you have planned for the outcome to be positive.
Knowing how to handle the stress of unforeseen events, or delays, is also a key to not burdening yourself with more than you can do in a given amount of time. On a day-to-day basis there will be many of these situations that you can’t control, but you can manage how you respond to them.
Make the most of your time
One of the tips for achieving work-life balance has to do with not overworking, and a basic but effective strategy for achieving this is to make sure you dedicate time from work to work.
Also, make sure you are not procrastinating more than you should, or that you find yourself in scenarios where you procrastinate on tasks that you can perfectly well do today.
If you are able to work at a good pace, and without distractions, during the time you are supposed to be doing it then you won’t have to take time out of your own time to catch up on your tasks.
Learn to say "no."
Especially in jobs we tend to be afraid to say “No”, and that is because we think we will get into a state where we will be useless to our colleagues, or superiors, which would not be earning us their grace at all.
Keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with helping others, or offering to do extra work in your job. Unless you are overextending yourself with a workload that you can’t handle at the time.
Ideally, do not accept anything that could compromise your time off, which goes hand in hand with knowing how to set your schedule and communicating it correctly so that respect is created.
Evaluate and readjust your professional and personal time
You may wonder what “evaluate and readjust” has to do with work-life balance. And the fact is that both are actions you should learn to do if you have identified in our reading that you are working more than you should, or can.
The first step in implementing any personal and professional strategy to improve your work-life balance is to assess your situation. What leads you to have such a heavy workload, and what would happen if you suddenly decide to carry just enough of it according to the time and effort you can afford.
The second step will be to readjust, which goes hand in hand with establishing your schedule, creating a daily agenda, among other strategies that we have already mentioned, with the intention of establishing a plan of action that allows you to generate balance.
Of course, when you lead a life of overindulging at the beginning there may be a certain feeling of guilt, especially when you start using the word “no” in order to respect our free time, but a professional can advise you to go through it.
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