Keeping a good work-life balance may be difficult, but it is important. Work-life balance means managing responsibilities at work, while having enough time for personal life. It helps increase productivity, improve your well-being, prevent burnout, and reduce chronic stress.
It is important to understand that work-life balance is not only spending equal time on work and on home, but also knowing when it is time to work and when to rest.
Work-life balance is beneficial for all types of job modes (office-based, remote, hybrid, and freelancers).
What to Expect from Work-Life Balance
Normalizing work-life balance may make your life more fulfilling which means you will succeed both in personal and work lives. If not kept, it may lead to depression, anxiety and other physical/mental health illnesses.
Some of the benefits of work-life balance are:
Improved Health
People who keep the balance between work and life have more chances to be healthy than those who don’t. If you spend longer hours on work, there are higher chances that your stress levels will increase.
According to The Mental Health Foundation states: “The cumulative effect of increased working hours is having an important effect on the lifestyle of a huge number of people, which is likely to prove damaging to their mental well-being.”
When mental health suffers, it can also affect your performance at work. Moreover, being in a bad health state may not let you be productive and demonstrate your skills accordingly.
A survey done by the Mental Health Foundation states that 27% of people who work longer feel depressed, 34% feel anxious, and 58% feel irritable. Also, poor-work life balance affected nearly 66.67% of employees in terms of personal development, home life, and physical/mental health issues.
Low Chances of Burnout
If there is an imbalance between work and life, you may have signs of burnout. This imbalance may happen because of unequal distribution of your energy between rest, work, family, etc. Eventually, you may feel mentally and physically exhausted.
Overworking can be considered one of the main reasons for having burnout. Especially, when working remotely, there are higher chances to work longer.
For preventing burnout, there are several solutions that can help: time/stress management, mindfulness, goal achievement, and problem solving. With these components, you may better know how to decrease the chances of working too much.
Improved Productivity
Working well may be the most common goal that people have. For providing good work quality, you may need to distribute your energy equally in work and personal life.
Poor work-life balance may have a significant influence on your productivity. In case of imbalance, it may be difficult to keep the work quality high.
When you achieve balance, you will achieve efficiency and productivity.
What Can Stop You from Having Work-Life Balance
How many people have you seen who manage to do everything and yet are always stressed and worried? Stress is usually an indicator that you’re not managing your time well enough and may be constantly worried about whether you’ll do everything or not. Therefore, learning to manage your time, allowing yourself some flexibility and adding free time slots for rest are all important for decreasing stress levels and maintaining work-life balance.
Here are some factors that prevent work-life balance:
Time Wasting Activities
There may be tons of distractions that prevent you from having work-life balance. For instance, you may spend too much time on work and not have enough time for your personal life and vice versa.
The most common time wasting activities can be considered spending much time on social media, multitasking, checking emails, talking to others, doing others’ work, not planning ahead, not being organized and more.
Once you are aware of your time wasting activities, you can take steps towards fixing them.
Lack of Rest
To have a work-life balance, it is very important to have enough rest. Lack of sleep may harm your health. If not addressed, it may lead to stress and anxiety.
It can be difficult to work well and enjoy your life when you do not get enough sleep. Moreover, it is important to understand the importance of organizing your sleeping schedule to avoid upcoming mental health problems.
Strict work schedule
Sometimes, to have work-life balance, you may need to change your schedule. For instance, you may have overworked to meet the deadline of a certain task; in this case, you may reschedule other duties to have more energy and achieve balance.
Also, when you have an organized schedule, you know what you have to do in any period of the day.
Guide to Improved Work-Life Balance
It may be challenging for you to keep the balance between work and personal lives. However, it is essential to keep it to avoid health-related issues, increase motivation at work and decrease stress levels. Here’s a guide to improved work-life balance:
Track Time
To have a better work-life balance, it is important to understand the value of time management. Successful time management sets the following key advantages: reduces stress levels, helps you remain focused on work, minimize procrastination, increase self-confidence, boost productivity, and meet your goals.
Nowadays, there are time-tracking software that automatically control your performance. The right time-tracking tool can improve your time management system, establish efficiency and normalize work-life balance.
Time-tracking software may have useful features for you, such as time tracker with screenshots that will help you know what you are working on in real-time. This way, you will know how you spend your working day, how productive you are, and what are the things that waste your time.
Take breaks
With controlled breaks, you are able to vent the stress you’ve accumulated during the working time and you may also do something you enjoy to rest a little bit. Once you’ve rested and whatever it is you wanted to do is finished, you can go right back to work with a fresh mind and a less twitchy hand that constantly wants to do something else.
Ask for flexible schedule
Being able to have a flexible schedule may have a significant influence on greater retention and engagement. As a result, it can bring happiness and lead to the company’s ultimate goal achievement.
Workplace flexibility gives you the opportunity to manage both your work and personal lives. Therefore, having a flexible schedule allows you to manage time by adding free time slots to enjoy and relax, and as a result returning to work with more energy and enthusiasm.
To Wrap Up
With these pieces of advice, there are higher chances that you will have greater work-life balance. It is up to you to decide whether the tips and concepts described in the guide can be useful for you or not. You are absolutely free to create and implement your own tactics and strategies of work-life balance, but this specific guide can be a good start for you.
Author’s bio: Anastasia Budaghyan is a content writer and a musician. She loves reading, writing, playing piano and listening to music. The themes of her writing are mainly related to productivity, time tracking, and work-life balance.
