Is work-life balance a reality or a myth? Many people believe this concept to be far from true. In the modern era, the nature of work is constantly changing, and it's becoming demanding day by day.
Nowadays, when businesses keep evolving, all business tools ensure constant communication. Companies' hunger to reach the top requires active participation from employees, thereby compromising work-life balance. Knowing where we draw the line between work and life is essential.
The concept of work-life balance significantly affects health and contentment in one's life. The idea depends on your agenda of dividing time between work and leisurely pursuits; leisure is everything outside the scope of work. Working beyond business hours and having tight deadlines make it hard to achieve work-life balance.
Importance of Work-life Balance
Why is it essential to achieve work-life balance? To make your life stress-free and maintain a happy work environment. No matter how passionate you are about your career, if you're too hard on yourself, extra working hours will exhaust you. And you might end up hating the job you loved once, making you realize the importance of work-life balance.
Here are some more reasons you need to improve your work-life balance.
1. Prevents Mental Checkouts
Not everyone has the privilege of leaving a workplace instantly because of a tiring environment. You must have bills to pay or a family to take care of. And you wouldn't leave until a better job opportunity comes in. Therefore, you might exit mentally.
When your brain checks out, you wouldn't be as motivated to go to work or complete the tasks as you used to be. No motivation means the quality of your performance will reduce, negatively affecting you and the company. Therefore, supervisors should also implement some work-life balance tips to keep their team mentally present and put out their best work.
2. Less Stress
Jobs are the primary source of stress for many people. The thought that they have no choice but to do what they're asked worsens the anxiety. Remember, your preferences make a big difference. Avoid taking on additional work when you're already suppressed under the weight of your primary responsibilities.
Make your health your priority. And don't ever compromise on it for things that aren't priorities. After all, if your mental and physical health is not okay, you will have to spend the money you earn on your lost health. Isn’t it better to take care of yourself and spend the money you earn on leisurely pursuits?
3. Improved Mental Health
The problem with an unbalanced work-life is that you spend the whole day in your workplace, then in the evening, you go home and rest. Do you know what's lacking there? Staying outdoors for a while. Because of your busy schedule, you don't have time to go outside and breathe in nature.
Staying indoors loaded with work can significantly damage your mental health. Moreover, your brain's ability to handle negative thoughts will decrease if you're constantly stressed, worsening your situation.
One of the significant work-life balance benefits is improved mental health because it affects everything in your life. It's up to you whether your mental health has a positive or negative impact.
4. Present Mind
Many people who are yet to achieve work-life balance have this one complaint. They're unable to be mentally present at both work and home. When your mind is constantly loaded with work thoughts, it gets cluttery in there, stealing your ability to be mentally present. And what worsens that? The constant guilt of missing out on important occasions because of your job or business, such as your child's performance at school, family functions, etc.
How to Achieve Work-life Balance?
Good mental health should be every human's priority. We've compiled a list of work-life balance tips to keep your mental health intact.
1. Collaboration is Crucial
Team collaboration is essential to ensure the project you're working on gets done on time and correctly. You can use numerous online collaboration tools to ensure everyone on your team is taking care of their responsibilities. You can also check if your team needs help somewhere or where they've reached with their tasks through online collaboration tools.
If your work requires you to interact with your business's website's management or design, Strikingly brings the perfect online collaboration tools. Before we talk about the devices, let us give you an overview of Strikingly. It is a website builder that doesn't require any coding or web designing experience. Strikingly offers various adaptable website templates and a drag-and-drop feature to edit them.
Now, let's move on to the team collaboration features. Strikingly team management feature allows the site's owner to create a space for them and their employees. This feature lets you invite people to edit your website. For instance, you can invite your web designer to implement and test the design they have in mind.
Follow the steps below to invite a team member to manage your site.
a. Go to the website editor and choose "Settings" from the top-left corner.
b. Click "Team."
Image taken from Strikingly
c. Tap the "Add teammate" button.
d. Fill out the required information.
e. Tap "Send invitation."
Image taken from Strikingly
Moreover, Strikingly allows you to add a blog section to your website. And with it comes a scheduling feature that will help you manage your responsibilities, enabling you to achieve work-life balance. Suppose you manage the company's blog or are a blogger. In that case, the blog post scheduling feature can help you manage your responsibilities. You can write your blog posts in Strikingly's blog editor any time you feel like writing, then set the publishing time.
Here's how you can schedule your blog posts.
a. Add the blog section to your Strikingly website by clicking "Add new section" and then "Simple blog."
b. Click "Manage blog posts."
c. Tap on "Write new post."
Image taken from Strikingly
d. Craft your article, and add a background image, color, or video. You'll see the option in the top-right corner.
d. Click the publish button, and select "Schedule for later."
e. Select the date and time, and tap "Schedule."
Image taken from Strikingly
2. Learn to Say No
Saying no to things that aren't your responsibility is okay. Some people can't just say no, thinking they might sound rude. If you're one of them, know that you don't sound harsh declining extra work that isn't your responsibility. It's important to set boundaries.
If you're always up for taking on other people's unfinished work, they can take advantage of you. Supervisors must also respect their team's boundaries and encourage everyone to complete their tasks on time, so others don't have to do additional tasks.
3. Get Your Priorities Right
When you sort your priorities out, you will be able to decide or try too hard to be present everywhere. If something is unnecessary and you don't feel like doing it, or it's disturbing your personal space or time, decline it politely.
Another thing you can do is find a less time-consuming solution for some things. For example, your boss called a meeting after working hours to discuss some things. You can suggest holding an online conference or delaying it to some other day if they can.
4. Try to Finish Your Tasks During Office Hours
A highly effective way to achieve work-life balance is completing your task during office hours and going home stress-free to relax.
You can create a to-do list and write how much time you will give to each task. Keep the schedule tight, and try to fit your primary responsibilities into your office hours.
5. Keep Hobbies
You need hobbies even if you love your job enough to do them 24/7. If you're constantly engaged with your job-related tasks, there will be a time when you no longer would enjoy them as much as you do. Therefore, it's crucial to keep hobbies unrelated to your work. You can do what you like in your free time, then return to your job with fresh energy.
6. Exercise and Eat Healthy
Image taken from Strikingly’s user’s website
Incorporating exercise and a healthy diet into your daily routine will enhance your productivity, keep you in a good mood, and improve your mental and physical health. When you improve your productivity, you can complete your tasks on time and go home without burden.
7. Get a Job You Love
You're not going to love every aspect of your job. But it should have that one thing that motivates you to get out of bed. If you hate your job, you'll be unable to finish your work on time, due to which you will have to work extra hours.
Work-life balance is not only about the workload. It's also about work stress. If you hate what you do, you'd be constantly stressed about repeatedly doing something you don't like. If your job is why you're too lazy to get out of bed every morning, you're doing something wrong. It can be a toxic workplace environment, too much workload, etc.
Lastly, ensure your mental or physical health is not disturbed because a healthy mind and body positively affect every aspect of your life.
