Written by Level Home Staff
Learning how to juggle work and your personal life can be tough. You might not always have the perfect balance, but having a decent one can improve your quality of life. Read on to learn how to improve and maintain a better work-life balance.
Table of Contents:
Work-life balance refers to the relationship between the time you spend working and the time spent on personal interests/activities outside of work. Equally prioritizing the demand of both work and personal life is typically viewed as a good work-life balance for most people.
Achieving a healthy work-life balance requires conscious management of your time and energy into both professional and personal commitments. Maintaining a good work-life balance allows you to thrive in your professional career and maintain your personal well-being. Ideally, after work you’re able to unplug and spend your personal time doing things you enjoy like being with family and friends, or pursuing your favorite hobby.
A positive work-life balance can help you:
Reduce stress
Avoid burnout
Improve your overall sense of well-being
Increase productivity and job satisfaction
The most common causes of poor work-life balance all revolve around spending too much time and energy working. If you’ve ever caught yourself checking Slack or emails on your phone late into the night, you know how easy it is to blur the lines between work and personal time. Even a longer-than-expected commute can reduce the time you have to yourself outside of work. Other things that can lead to poor work-life balance include:
Long working hours with no flexibility to work from home
Increased responsibilities at work requiring you to spend extra time on the job
Poor time management making balancing priorities difficult
Company culture that encourages dedicating a majority of your time to work
So how do you actually improve and maintain a healthy work-life balance? Start with these tips:
Set boundaries: Whether you work from home or go into the office, setting clear limits on your work hours and sticking to them can reduce the risk of burnout and make your time spent at work more pleasant. You can start small by adding your working hours to your calendar and setting an away message in Slack for your off-hours (or deleting it from your phone entirely).
Bonus Tip: If you have any concerns about setting boundaries between your work and personal time, try discussing it with your manager.
Take breaks: There’s a reason so many states require employees to take a break after a threshold of hours worked. Regular breaks allow your brain to recharge and can even help relieve stress, plus when you return to work you’re more likely to be productive with your time.
Bonus Tip: Try taking a short walk during a break to help manage stress and improve your mood.
Learn to say no: Being a “yes man” will inevitably lead you to working longer hours as you manage an overwhelming amount of work. Learning to say “no” doesn’t necessarily mean you turn down every opportunity or request for a favor, it’s more about setting realistic boundaries. You have the power to decide what you reasonably have time for.
Bonus Tip: If you can’t bring yourself to say no, try saying “yes, but…” to establish clear boundaries and align expectations from the get go.
Manage your time: Good time management skills can help you efficiently prioritize and complete tasks at work, as well as balance out your time between tasks and other commitments, like meetings. Managing time effectively can ensure you leave work on time and enjoy your personal life without compromising the quality or completeness of your work.
Bonus Tip: Try the Pomodoro method, alternate between 25 minutes of heads-down work and 5 minutes of a brain-break afterwards until you’ve accomplished everything on your to-do list.
Prioritize your health: With long work hours and commutes it's easy, and even appealing, to sacrifice health and fitness. It sure is tempting to grab some fast food on the way home, or skip the gym so you can get a few more minutes of shut-eye in the morning, but making a habit of it can negatively impact you in more ways than you might think. If you aren’t properly fueling your body or getting a healthy amount of sleep, it can lead to you feeling sluggish or even having brain fog at work, which can majorly slow your productivity.
Bonus Tip #1: Stick to a regular bedtime and wake up time to help yourself be more alert and focused during the day.
Bonus Tip #2: Skip the store and get groceries delivered right to your kitchen with services like Walmart+ InHome. All you need is a smart lock to take advantage of the most convenient way to stock your fridge, so you don’t have to spend your off-work hours on a trip to the supermarket.
Take vacations: Whether you go out of town or stay on your couch, vacations are an important part of making sure you don’t burnout. Even a few days off can provide an opportunity to disconnect from work and recharge – just make sure you really unplug.
Bonus Tip: Try taking advantage of a long weekend by booking PTO around it. If you have a company holiday on Monday, take Friday off too. Even just 4 days without thinking about work can help recharge your brain and improve productivity when you return.
It’s never too late to start forming healthier habits. With these 6 tips, you can be well on your way to a better work-life balance in no time. You got this!
