People with tight schedules and time-consuming jobs experience the lack of work-life balance every once in awhile.
More than 90% of working respondents that participated in a survey conducted by Harvard Business School reported working more than 50 hours a week, which is far from ideal.
Although you may find yourself at the point where it seems impossible to maintain healthy work-life balance, several strategies can help you in this process.
What should you do if you want to change your routine to your advantage?
Read on and find out.
#1. Define Priorities Following Your Needs And Wishes
Are you stuck in the process of finding a balance between your job and personal life?
Maybe you have numerous ideas and goals in front of you, which is amazing.
However, you should ask yourself which one of them is the most important to you.
Do you want to focus on your career or would you rather spend more time with your family?
Once you take this step and make up your mind, the whole process will become less complicated.
Provided that you have realized what your top priority is, you should think about your main goals.
No matter what you are focusing on, you should be able to make goals for both professional and personal timeline.
Making the Professional Goals List
When it comes to your career, you should ask yourself: “Are you satisfied with it?”
If it is only a source of frustration and you don’t like it, you may want to consider changing it.
Maybe you should start your own business? Even if you are comfortable at your current job position, you may not want to work there in the long term.
It is more than okay if you are thinking about promotion, too. You just have to be aware of your preferences.
Even if you are comfortable at your current position, you may not want to work there in the long term.
It is more than okay if you are thinking about promotion. You just have to be aware of your preferences.
All these could be good reasons for you to start listening to your inner voice.
If you are not happy with your work, your dissatisfaction can easily affect your personal life. And that’s exactly what you want to avoid.
For instance, if your long-term business goal is to pursue a different career, think about short-term steps to reach that goal.
These steps can be monthly or weekly plans with precise actions that will get you where you want to be.
Creating the Personal Life Goals List
If you are willing to wisely spend your free time, you should think about your personal goals.
What do you want to achieve on the personal level? Maybe you want to get married, strengthen your friendships, or change your diet.
Once you take the necessary steps to improve your lifestyle and personal life, your career may improve, as well.
The healthier and more organized daily routine you have, the more focused and productive you’ll be at work.
Finally, remember that the key to a good balance between professional and personal life is finding a balance within each of them.
#2. Plan Your Life Thoroughly to Make the Most of It
If you are willing to give your daily routine a greater purpose, you should take care of two important things.
1. Organize Your Time in Detail.
To organize your time does not only mean to plan your working time.
Organizing your personal life can be equally painstaking, especially if you have to balance between your friends, family, hobbies, etc.
The busier you are, the less free time you will have. That’s why it’s important to introduce to-do lists both for your personal and professional life.
First of all, make sure to define priorities for each day or week and stay consistent.
Perform the tasks that you consider the most important first thing in the morning.
That way, you will be more inspired to do whatever you want during the day.
To keep yourself motivated, you may want to keep a journal of the tasks you have successfully finished, and go through everything you’ve done during the day before you go to sleep.
This way, you’ll feel more productive.
2. Precisely Define Your Working Hours and Keep the Work at the Office
Even though it may sound difficult, this is the most valuable advice you will ever get.
Once you come home, forget about the business issues. Chances are you won’t be paid for obsessing over your business during family time.
That’s why, in the first place, you should spend quality time with your family or do something that you enjoy.
If you really have to work from home, you still have room for fixing things.
You can do so by precisely defining your working hours at home.
Otherwise, you may get stuck between your family and your work, which is definitely not the most productive solution.
Creating a home office can be a good option but make sure not to spend too much time in there.
#3. Simplify Your Work Procedure
You may wonder what your work methods have to do with a healthy work-life balance.
There is an important thing to consider: If you don’t organize your work hours properly, you may end up thinking about unfinished tasks at home.
This is what happens when you create too complex tasks or procrastinate.
Unless you are ready to give up on your personal life because of your job, you should be more organized at work.
The use of simple project management software can be a helpful way of keeping things in your office under control.
One of the simple yet useful tools of this kind developed by ProProfs lets you organize both your own and your entire team’s work by making it easier for you to:
- Track the project’s tasks and performances
- Share files and discuss relevant issues with other team members
The use of reliable software and tasks simplification will improve your organization and increase productivity.
Hence, you will be able to keep professional worries within the working hours, away from personal life.
#4. Use Your Time Out of Work to Your Advantage
Once you’ve successfully organized your work, you should thoroughly think about your life out of the office.
Bad lifestyle affects productivity, and that’s why it is important to take care of yourself, both mentally and physically.
In addition to this, your priority list should include:
- Healthy food
No, you don’t have to go fully vegan all of a sudden.
However, it would be good if you had a better eating plan than grabbing a burger.
Maybe you could plan and prepare meals in advance, to make sure you always have a healthy eating option.
- Regular workouts
You don’t have to act like a professional athlete, but you can be active a couple of times a week.
You can swim, run, or just take a long walk. It could be enough for you to keep your mind clear and get healthier at the same time.
- Good quality sleep
It is vitally important for you to sleep enough and take time for yourself.
The more stressful your job is, the more quality sleep you are going to need.
To keep your productivity and efficiency at the optimal level, you should sleep about eight hours every night.
#5. Create Your Own Rules and Stick to Them
Once you have precisely defined your goals and ways to achieve them, you should be consistent.
If you are not capable of respecting the schedule you’ve made, then you’re doing something wrong.
Nobody says it is an easy process, but if you are passionate about the goals, you will be able to stick to your schedule.
Moreover, you will find a way to follow it even if it seems impossible.
Yes, distractions will be waiting for you at every corner, but you should remember the bigger picture.
If you can’t keep your focus, nobody will do it for you.
It’s especially important not to forget this when work or personal life seem to overwhelm you.
In moments like these, you should be ready to defend your own time and decisions.
Learn how to say “no” to endless workloads instead of letting them affect you personally.
One of the best ways to do so is to forget about your cell phone, laptop, and boss when you spend quality time with your family or on your own.
When you’re not at work, don’t check your email for more than two times a day because you may end up stuck replying to them the whole day.
Here’s the Key to Creating a Perfect Work-Life Balance
Long story short, believe it or not, there is a magic recipe for a perfect work-life balance.
It includes a clear mind, well-set goals, determination, and tools that will make it easier for you to maintain it.
Some of the tools you should consider are:
- Personal and work diaries
- Simple project management software and other practical tools
- Motivational cards, educational podcasts, etc.
Are you already aware of what matters to you?
Do you realize that you should get the most of every minute, every hour, every day?
If your answer is yes, you are already on the right path to the healthy work-life balance!
David is a technical writer. His works are regularly published in various papers and top-notch portals. His rich experience in the project management domain helps him offer the latest and freshest perspective on improved efficiency in workflows across organizations. His work on the subject can also be found on ProProfs Project.