One of the hardest things we have to learn to balance in life as adults is our work-life ratio. We can’t work too much and we can’t play too much either, and it is much harder than you might initially expect to strike this delicate balance.
Especially if we work from home, work in a freelance manner, or work self-employed, as more and more of us now do. The new kind of work we have in this generation means that work bleeds more and more into our daily lives, and it is much harder to keep appropriate boundaries and levels of separation between the two.
If we work too much, we get stressed and burned out. We miss out on important things, our relationships suffer. If we play and relax too much, we don’t get enough work done, our job performance suffers, and we can get ourselves in a tricky financial situation.
As such, we need to strike the right balance.
Here are our very best tricks on how to do it.
Set firm boundaries with those around you
The number one thing to do when you are reevaluating any work-life balance is to set firm boundaries for yourself and with those around you.
Other people around us can willingly or unwillingly overstep our boundaries for their own gain and interests, and it is up to us to make sure that this doesn’t affect our lives.
If your partner is taking up too much of your lunchtime, you need to communicate with them that this is taking up too much of your workday and that you are suffering as a result.
If your boss is keeping you behind each night an hour after your finishing time, you will need to communicate with them that this is eating into the quality time yous spend with your children and you aren’t willing to give this up.
It’s all about standing up for yourself while being both firm and polite all at once.
Get a diary
Sometimes we get out of whack because we aren’t keeping an accurate track of our time and our tasks. One of the best things we can do to keep ourselves organised and balanced is simply to keep a diary. This could be on your phone, tablet, or on good old fashioned paper.
Knowing exactly what you have to do and what time you have to do it will help you to divide your time more fairly and appropriately.
It can also help you see if your time is swaying one way more than the other so that you can rectify it.
Create priority lists
When we have too much to do and not enough time to do it, we need to make lists based on our priorities. Very often we have to accept that we can’t get everything done and we do need to sacrifice some things.
But we need to sacrifice the right things, not the ones that could hurt ourselves or those around us.
Creating priority lists each day or week is a great way to manage your time while making sure everyone’s needs are met and that you are striking the right balance.
Getting the work-life ratio right is difficult and I’m afraid it might always be so. But there are ways to work around it and it is responsibility at the end of the day to do so.
How will you balance your life this next year?
