Do you find yourself missing out on a lot of things due to work? Maybe you can never put your phone down without an email alert chiming in?
I think we’ve all been there, but at the same time can all agree that with the recent pandemic we’ve been struggling even more to find a healthy work-life balance. With many working from home, it’s difficult to draw the line between working and personal life, especially when your work is a part of your home environment
The good news is I have plenty of ways to help you find a healthy balance and get your work and life priorities in check!
Follow a schedule
A schedule is KEY when it comes to maintaining balance, especially when working from home. Whatever your scheduled work time is, ensure to make a conscious effort to work within that time frame and put a hard stop on anything that falls outside that time. We constantly find ourselves working around the clock with no set time as to when to stop. Following a schedule will help to keep you intact with your work priorities and allow you to set boundaries. And remember today’s exceptions are tomorrow’s expectations so ensure that you don’t make a habit of responding to clients after hours and try to save all communication via email.
Turn off email notifications from your phone
This is a big one for a lot of people, but a very important one. We can’t help getting emails after hours and sometimes they can be important, but I urge you to turn off email notifications after work hours. This helps tremendously and tells your brain to switch off of work mode. Now if you’re someone who has a lot of responsibility and maybe doesn’t feel comfortable with going M.I.A, communicate to your team what you’ll be doing and let them know that if it is something urgent they can text you. Also, just because you turn off the notifications, doesn’t mean you can’t manually check your email at least once in the evening IF YOU are that concerned there may be an emergency.
Be upfront about your workload
Oftentimes we like to bite off more than we can chew and that will leave us overwhelmed, stressed and burnt out. If you notice that you’re working late all the time, or just getting too much work pushed on to you, then it’s time to have a talk with your manager about priorities and expectations. Unless you say something, your manager won’t know that the workload is too much to handle.
Use your vacation days
It always shocks me when people tell me that they feel bad taking time off..especially paid time off! You should never feel bad about taking some time to yourself, everyone deserves a break. Plus they are YOUR vacation days. You also shouldn’t be working through your vacation time, it’s your chance to unwind. Even if you don’t have something planned, use this time for rest and doing things that you wouldn’t normally have a chance to do during work. It’s to both yours and your team’s advantage that you come back reset and ready to go!
Many are caught up in working around the clock that it often takes them away from enjoying other things in their life. Often it’s because we think there is a correlation between how hard and long we work to how successful we will be – BUTT I am sure you also heard of the phrase “Work smarter, not harder”. My friend, I want that to apply to you! And if it doesn’t, then I highly encourage you to implement at least 2 tips from this blog and see how you feel after a month. And please don’t be someone who thinks relaxing makes you lazy, you owe it to yourself, colleagues and loved ones! It’s important to recharge and configure your brain to understand the difference between work life and personal life. If anything, by implementing these changes into your work life you’ll start to see your productivity and happiness levels increase drastically.
With gratitude ?
Jen Rose Narayan, Career + Purpose Coach
