For most people, juggling the demands of a career and a personal life is an ongoing challenge. Achieving the indefinable “work-life balance” can often feel like an impossible goal, especially for people who strive to do everything perfect. In today’s competitive world, managing careers and families and feeling satisfied with both is a huge challenge.
People who study workplace culture emphasizes that someone’s best individual work-life balance will change over time, like when the work life balance of a person is compared before marriage and after marriage there is a huge change.
A study shows that almost all successful people work 6 days a week. Average people work 40, maybe even 30 hours a week. Most people spend 50% of their time doing non-work-related activities while they’re in the office. Browsing social media, checking email, taking long lunch breaks, and chatting with colleagues are all examples of time-wasting behaviors. When these activities turn into habits, it becomes harder to get all your work done to focus on other aspects of your life.
Below are a few tips to achieve work life balance.
Work from home: Inquire about your company’s policies on flextime and working from home. If you’re a strong performer, you have a better chance of negotiating an arrangement that works for both you and your employer.
Use of Technology: Technology should help make your life easier, not control it. Stop using technologies at certain times so that you can focus on your family or friends.
Communicate your difficulties: If you not available for certain hours during the day or weekend because you’re dealing with family issues, let your manager and colleagues know, communicate with them and get their full support.
Telecommute. Telecommuting a few times, a week could help free up valuable hours. You’ll be able to focus on work for long stretches at a time and use the extra hours to meet personal responsibilities.
Learn how to let go of things: Trying to be perfect and be everything to everyone only ensures failure. Learn how to say “no” when it’s warranted. Cut out the things in your life that are stressing you out and just don’t matter. The weight lifted will likely be heavier than you had realized, and it’ll free you up for more important things.
Protect Your Private Time: Allow yourself to daydream in the subway or appreciate good weather on your walk to work. If you don’t allow yourself pockets of personal time, you’ll become too burned out to fully appreciate any part of your life.
Establish boundaries at work: Technological advances enable employers to offer flexible work environments, a job perk that employees consider very important, but these technological advances also mean employees are accessible 24 hours a day. Sit down with your boss and discuss what the expectations are of you and set boundaries on things like your availability outside of work to take calls and emails and how often, if ever, you’re able to work overtime. When you and your employer are clear on what you expect of one another, you’re far less likely to fall into a pattern of working around the clock.
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