Although it can be argued that for driven or high-achieving people, it virtually impossible to realise a work-life balance, it is exactly those people who might need it the most. Although a perfect work-life equilibrium might be impossible, these five tips can put you on the path to make you and your personal life a priority, and hopefully, to life a more balanced life.

 

With 2019 off to a clip, and we are almost finished the first full week of February, it is easy to get overwhelmed and feel as if you need to try harder, work harder, to stay on track with respect to the professional goals you have set. Further, in the West, there tends to be the attitude that there virtue in working long hours, working on weekends, and not taking long vacations. However, such a posture can result in speedy burnout, prolonged fatigue, and illness, among other things,

As a result, there has been a growing emphasis, particularly in the West on developing better work-life balance, or at the very least, trying to ensure that you actively develop and nurture the aspects of your life that are not work-related. To that end, and in that new paradigm, we are of the view that your first priority ought to be yourself – ensuring that you are taking better care of your body, mind and spirit. Below are five tips which we believe can help you become more balanced, and in turn, put you on the path to a more balanced and fulfilled life.

1. Schedule ‘me’ time

All too often, there is so much to do and so little time; and for those with pressing family commitments – spouse/partner, children, etc. – these responsibilities also need your time and attention. However, you too are also deserving of your time and attention: to decompress; relax; replenish.

Although it might not be realistic for you to carve out hours of ‘me time’ per day, you ought to be able to find a few 15—30 minutes blocks of time throughout the day to just step back and focus on you. During those periods, you may wish to consider doing one or more of the following:

  • do a self-check, to figure out how you are feeling
  • mediating
  • journaling
  • exercising
  • getting a massage
  • just resting.

2.  Know how and when to say no

So many of us are Type A personalities. We are hardworking, ambitious and goal-oriented. As a result, our plates are always full, and people – be they family, friends, bosses and/or co-workers – know they can depend on us to get a particular job done.

However, although it may feel good to be able to help others, or to solve problems, and sometime your participation or intervention is absolutely essential, these situations can be not only sources of stress, but also add to your already-packed workload. It is thus crucial that you develop the skill to prioritise the things you need to do, identify your priorities, and be prepared to tell yourself – and others – ‘no’, in order to ensure that you are not unduly over-burdened, and are in a position to take better care of yourself.

3.  Do not ignore your body

Although we might think that our bodies break down ‘all of a sudden’, that is rarely the case. Typically, and if we are aware, our body would have been giving us cues for days, weeks, months, or even years, that something is not right. However, we either choose to ignore those cues, or are just not sufficiently attuned to even notice them. It is thus time to start paying more attention, so that your body remain more in balance – to remain healthy and strong.

So, if you have been hard at work for a few hours, check in with yourself to understand what your body might be experiencing. For example, do your shoulders and neck hurt, or are you feeling lightheaded, or has your eyesight has gotten blurry?

First, start to take note of those feelings, and how frequently they are occurring. Is there a pattern? Could medical intervention be needed? Also, what should you be doing to not only restore your body’s equilibrium, but reduce it getting out of balance in the first place?

4.  Manage your own expectations

When you have a task or project to do, it is likely that you hope to be economical with your time and energy and complete it as soon as possible. Or when you start a new project or venture, you expect the desired outcomes to be realised yesterday. However, is the time you propose to allocate, or the anticipated time within which the desired results should be achieved, realistic?

Frequently, and although you and your team might have the best of intentions, not only are unforeseen situations likely to arise that introduce delays, some tasks and processes tend to evolve in their own time – which cannot be forced. It is thus important to manage your own expectations: recognise things rarely go to plan, and it still important to try to maintain some modicum of balance, and to keep some focus on your continued health and wellbeing.

5.  Work smarter

Although there are lots of meaning that can be attributed to the term ‘smart’, at its simplest. It is recommending that your be more efficient and effective in how you deploy your effort and spend your time. Particularly among people who consider themselves night owls , or those who have more control of their working hours, it can easy to waste a lot of time during the day, just pottering, relaxing, or browsing on the Internet and/or on social media, and start focussing on work late in the evening or at night. However, for the number of hours they have been awake, and for all intents and purposes, their productivity is actually very low.

In working smarter, the objective is to maximise the time that you have assigned to work and to achieved specific results. To that end, people use a variety of strategies and productivity hacks, such as working on the most difficult tasks first, when they are full of energy; working on some of the easier tasks first thing in the morning, in order to have some quick wins on the board for  the day; and the Pomodoro Method, to name a few.  In summary, it is all about trying to maximise the time you have allocated to work to achieve as much as you can, so that outside of that block of time, you can properly and fully incorporate self-care into your life.

 

 

Image credit:  Alpha Stock Images