With how productive people are required to be today, it can be difficult to know what is important, and how to take care of everything you have to, and still have time for a personal life. The fact is, an unbalanced life can not only be bad for your relationships, but for your work life too. Your stress level, mental and physical health all end up taking a hit when your life is not balanced.
However, don’t be fooled. There is no such thing as balance in life like there are with a balance of scales with 50 percent of your life going to work, and 50 percent going to other things. That is a myth. In truth, sometimes your family will need you more, and sometimes your work will need you more. That’s how life goes.
But, it’s all in how you approach everything to ensure that you can, most of the time, move in and out of work life and home life without feeling stressed out, that you’re not doing enough of one or the other. The truth is if you’re working on both sides it means you’re going to feel more satisfied in all of your life. There are some steps you can take to achieve better work-life balance that you should start right now.
Step #1: Get Your Priorities Straight
The very first thing, and the most important thing, you need to do is to get a firm understanding of what your priorities are. Make a list. What is important to you? Take the time to really think this through. List the things in your life that are most important as if you did not need to work for a living. Of course, you do, but sometimes the need for money can actually skew your priorities and warp your conception of what is truly a priority.
What are your life goals? – Consider the broader picture. Sure, you have to work each day from maybe 8 to 5 or some other schedule, but what are the ultimate goals that you really have? For some people it helps to create a vision board or some other visual method by which they can see where they want to be. Try thinking about where you want to be five, ten and even 20 years from now.
Where are you are now? – Take a look at your current family, finances, career, travel, leisure, hobbies and every aspect of your life. How far are you from your goals and what steps do you need to take to get to your goals?
By knowing what your goals are, and what steps you have to take to get to your goals, you can set priorities and map out what you need to do to end up at your goal. When it comes to life, it’s the little things that matter. Take a small step each day toward your goals and you’ll end up succeeding. There is no possible way to fail if you’re sticking to the steps you’ve set up for yourself.
Step #2: Track Your Time
Start with tracking what you have to do every day for about a week, including work time, family time, friend time, and free time. Get a notebook, or use the note feature on your mobile device to take quick notes about anything you do. It doesn’t matter if it’s lunch with friends, or working on a project at work.
The trick is to be very precise about writing down everything so that you can know what is really required to get you through a week. Once you have the list of things that you should be doing from step 1 you can compare what you are doing in step two. Then you can adjust your daily schedule to better match your goals.
Once you’ve tracked your time and written everything down that you do for a couple of weeks, you can add in the things you should have done. In this way, you can make a much better schedule by adding in what you missed to the next week. After a few months, you’ll do a lot better with the schedule as you build up a more realistic time table for everything.
Step #3: Avoid Multitasking
One of the biggest mistakes people make is multitasking. Even job descriptions today ask for “multitasking abilities” even though multitasking is really a roadblock to succeeding. Multitasking dilutes your ability to do your best on each task. It can also suck the fun out of free time, vacations, family time and time with your friends.
Think about it. When you do anything with frequent interruptions you simply cannot get into a work flow or even fun flow. You are not living in the moment and you’re not experiencing the true depth of your talent, or the fun that you’re having when you multitask. You’re distracted and not really being mindful about what you’re doing. Not only can you make mistakes, you can miss some of the enjoyment of life by not being mindful.
When you look at your daily to do list, try to do each thing with as few interruptions as possible. Be in the moment, and you’ll find that your work is of higher quality and your fun is that much more fun. Your children will appreciate being the center of attention for 15 minutes more than getting half your attention for two hours. Think of how you feel when you’re trying to be with someone and they keep checking their phone or looking at their computer.
Step #4: Schedule Everything
When you have a good grasp on the stuff you need to do use a calendaring system like Google Calendar that will sync with all your devices to schedule everything. Don’t just schedule the things you have to do, schedule in things you want to do as well. If you have to estimate time always add in a cushion in case you under estimate the time it will take.
It might seem very unromantic to have a calendar telling you when date night is, when you are taking little Johnny to the park, and when you’ll have lunch with your best friend. But it is the best way to ensure that you have time to do all the things you have to do plus all the things that you want to do. That’s one of the sure fire methods of having a more balanced life. Don’t skip this part.
What’s wonderful is that if you’ve set aside enough time for each thing you want or need to do, you’ll find that you get done early or finish up things faster than you thought. This means that you end up feeling as if you have more time because you’re the one controlling what you do and when, instead of just taking it by the seat of your pants.
Step #5: Make Time for Yourself
When you are making that schedule, always put in time for yourself. Whether it’s 2 hours on a Sunday morning, before anyone else gets up, or a Wednesday after noon. It doesn’t matter because it’s your schedule, but you need to make regular time for yourself.
Time for yourself might also include something like a long hot bath or 30 minutes each morning reading a novel or exercise class with your best friend. It’s all how you define it, not how anyone else defines it. If it makes you feel good and like you’ve had time for yourself that’s all that matters. But, don’t trick yourself. Be honest with what you need.
Remember that if spending time with other people helps you feel renewed that can be counted as time for yourself. But, some people do not feel energized being around others, they truly need time alone with only themselves. Be honest about where you stand as you create your calendar.
Step #6: Make Time for Your Friends & Family
While time with friends may include time for yourself, when it comes to your family that must be something you schedule just for them. Schedule dinner time each night, the bedtime ritual with your children and whether or not you are planning to get into bed each night with your spouse at the same time.
Be realistic about how long it takes to plan dinner, eat dinner, clean up after dinner and so forth. Don’t skimp. You don’t want to feel rushed. Plus, you don’t want to plan a big dinner that takes two hours to prepare on the night that your son has soccer practice. That night you’ll reheat frozen lasagna.
Don’t try to be super human. It’s okay to buy frozen food, or precut onions, it’s okay to go out to eat to spend time with your friends or family rather than having a big party. It’s okay to find ways to make more time in your day and let other people take up some of the slack so that you can find the time to really be with friends and family. The more ways you can find to give yourself a feeling of relaxation and less stress the better.
Step #7: Get Healthy
You may not realize how important getting healthy is for being able to have work-life balance. But, what often happens to people is they get so tied up in the things they have to do for work, and the things they have to do for family, that they forget to take care of themselves. If you’re one of those people you could reduce your time on this earth by 20 years giving you less time, and less quality time to reach your goals.
Eat right, exercise, don’t smoke and drink lightly. All of these things can lead to a better quality of life and a longer life. You can incorporate exercise and time with friends and family to make everything fit in. That isn’t really multitasking, so don’t worry about that. Finding time to move every day is one of the most important things you can do.
Living a healthy life will help you achieve more than just being healthy. It will help you enjoy each aspect of your life more fully. You’ll be able to work with a clearer mind, run and play with your children, be a fuller partner to your spouse, and more. Health affects all parts of your life and is one of the most important steps.
Step #8: Get Help
There is no sin to not being able to do it all yourself. That’s where outsourcing comes in. You can outsource house work, yard work, and even some of the work you do for your job if you think strategically. Anything you can outsource to other people that gives you more time to do the things that either earn money, or free you up to spend more quality time with your family, then it’s a win-win.
If you’re having issues figuring out what to do, hire a life coach. A life coach can help you set up your new balanced life. They can help you identify things that you can stop doing; things you need to start doing, and understand why. A life coach or even a counselor can do wonders in helping you obtain work-life balance.
Before hiring a life coach, get some suggestions from your colleagues, friends or family about someone they’ve hired. Check out the coach to ensure that they have a style of coaching that works with your needs. Some coaches offer one free consultation first; use it, that way you can ensure that you and the coach work well together.
Step #9 Learn How to Say No
One of the biggest favors you can do yourself is to learn how to say no. Saying no is something we are taught from infancy, that it is not a good thing to say. But, it’s time to unlearn that bad lesson from your parents and start standing up and saying no when either you do not want to do something, or you really do not have time to do something.
Learn to say “I have to check my calendar” before you say yes or no. That way you can give yourself time to think about it, and you can put some distance between you and the person asking for your time. It’s often easier to say no if you want to later than on the spot at the moment. Using this tactic can help you with many areas of your life.
To learn to say no, stop, think and delay. That process will help you think of a way to say no later if, in fact, you want to. You can look at your calendar, determine if the task fits in with your overall life goals or if you can reach your goals without doing it. There is never anything wrong with saying no and in truth you never have to say why you are saying no. You can simply say “No, thank you for asking.” And leave it at that.
Step #10: Evaluate Regularly
Things change and evolve as time moves forward. The plan you create the next couple of weeks will look very different from the plan you have in a year. That’s good. You should take the time to check out your plan and make it over again a couple of times a year. You need to evaluate what you’re doing and the results you’re getting to ensure that you’re on the right track.
Get out your calendar and check to see if you’ve done what you said you’d do each day. Determine how you can change things up to make your plans work better. Make a list of the things that are working as you thought and the things that aren’t. Determine how you can fix any problems and issues.
Now that you know how to improve your work-life balance, get started right now setting up each day to be more supportive of balance. As you move through your day, ask yourself if you’re enjoying your life or not. Are you spending enough time doing the things you want to do as compared to what you have to do? If so then you’re doing great, if not, look at your schedule and figure out how you can fix it.
It’s also imperative that you realize that true balance isn’t 50/50 work/family. It’s a lot more complicated than that. For example, if you’re an accountant it’s normal for your career field to have to work a lot during “tax season” if you think you’re going to have balance during that time then you won’t get far in your career. Instead, you’ll need to find a way to focus 100 percent on your work during that period, and then take some time off to focus on everything else when tax season is over.
Work-life balance is not elusive. You can achieve it if you set a goal to do so and do it. Get started today.
