Work-Life Balance: Tips for Achieving Balance and Well-Being

If you’ve ever felt overworked and stretched thin, you might be struggling with your work-life balance. The concept of work-life balance is all about managing your time in and out of work, while taking care of yourself and your personal needs. Although evidence shows that one of the benefits of work-life balance is that workers are more productive, employers continue to put pressure on their staff, and employees often fail to listen to their internal needs. 

If you’re not sure how to balance work and life, you’re not alone. Maintaining good work-life balance is a difficult task that many people struggle with. If that sounds like you, read on to discover some useful work-life balance tips.

Work-life balance is the concept of managing your work responsibilities while making time for yourself – your health, hobbies, social life, and family. The meaning of work-life balance is to make your personal life as much a priority as your tasks at work. This is especially important for students, many of whom work in addition to their studies, and might find the added demands of study and their personal lives to be overwhelming. 

The importance of work-life balance can’t be overstated. Poor work-life balance can have an immense impact on your mental health. Improper work-life balance can add to your feelings of stress and anxiety, reducing your health and happiness overall. Burnout is also a serious consequence of poor work-life balance and can cause people to leave their jobs or to fall ill. Additionally, poor work-life balance reduces your focus and cognitive abilities, which can lead to inadequate performance at work or school. Paradoxically, finding balance between your personal and professional life can actually make you more productive.

You might not be sure of whether your work-related stress is typical, or the result of poor work-life balance. There are many signs of improper work-life balance and paying attention to these symptoms can help you prevent a decline in your mental health. 

Many of these signs are cognitive, such as decreased focus, poor memory and retention, and confusion. Some signs of poor work-life balance can be related to mood, as you may find yourself more frustrated, sad, or irritable than usual. Fatigue is also a common symptom, and it might feel as though you can’t get enough rest. The people around you may notice these signs of poor work-life balance before you do, so it’s important to listen when your friends, family, and coworkers tell you they’ve noticed a change in your mood or behavior. 

Keeping a strong, healthy work-life balance is important for many reasons. It helps you maintain your good mental health and keeps you resilient to the ups and downs in your life. One of the benefits of work-life balance includes maintaining your physical health – work-life balance helps you make time for good sleep, exercise, and activities that keep you happy and healthy. It also helps you make time for your interpersonal relationships. 

Apart from your health and happiness, one of the benefits of work-life balance is that it improves your performance at work. Workers with good work-life balance are more productive, more focused, and more efficient with their time. They also tend to feel happier at work, since they’ve managed to find an appropriate balance between their personal and professional life.

If you feel your approach to work and life could use an overhaul, this is a good place to start. There are many tips and tricks to improve your work-life balance and thus your overall health and happiness. 

1. Assess Current Situation

The first step to improving your work-life balance is to understand where you’re starting from. Be honest when you assess your current work-life balance and whether you feel you have room for improvement.

Knowing where you stand with regards to your work-life balance is important because it provides a starting point for making positive change if necessary. 

2. Identify Priorities

If you’ve assessed your level of work-life balance and find it lacking, a good next step is to identify your top priorities inside and out of work. What is most important to you? What deserves most of your time and attention? Keeping your goals in line with your priorities is important. Often, it’s easy to get distracted by tasks that take a lot of our time and attention, but which aren’t necessarily in service of our values. This can increase our sense of poor work-life balance, since we’re not allocating time to things we feel really matter. 

One way to improve your work-life balance is to take stock of your long-term goals. With your goals in mind, you can ask yourself if any given task or job will help you achieve what’s most important to you. Furthermore, you can decide how you best want to use your time outside of work.

3. Develop Time Management Strategies

Organizing your time inside and out of work will improve your work-life balance, though few skills are harder to master than time management. Identify weaknesses in your time management abilities and see what you can do differently. Try keeping a schedule and setting alarms for deadlines to help keep you on track. Figure out what your common triggers of procrastination are and try to avoid them. For example, if you spend too much time scrolling on your phone, move it far from your workspace. Tricks like these will improve your time management, and with it, your work-life balance. 

If time management is a skill you need to work on, technology can be of great help. Use the applications on your phone, like your calendar and alarms, to keep your deadlines in mind. Try setting a time limit on your TV or phone and take a look at your screen time stats to see where you can improve. There are many apps, like Todoist and TimeTree, that can help you with time management and organization. Typically, they work using to-do lists, goal checklists, and notifications to keep you on track. 

With our busy lives, it can feel like there isn’t time to find balance between our personal and professional life. One way to help your time management is to clarify the perimeter between your work and your personal time. Be clear about when you’ve switched off for the day and try to let go of whatever has happened at work. You can do this by having a ritual when you finish work or study, to make it clear that you have concluded working or are taking a break.

4. Set Boundaries at Work, School, and Home 

Poor work-life balance can sometimes be a result of struggling to establish boundaries with your superiors at work or school. It’s difficult but important to be clear with your employers about not working outside your regular hours. You can also establish study hours and ask professors for extensions when you need them. It’s not uncommon for employers to request that you take on extra work, but even if those tasks are temporary, saying no in a reasonable and professional manner is crucial to maintaining your work-life balance. 

One of your biggest obstacles in achieving work-life balance is yourself. Many people put extra pressure on themselves to do more and more with less time, whether it’s at work, at school, or at home. It’s important to be realistic about what you can accomplish and to accept that you need time for yourself like everyone else.

5. Deal with Stress and Burnout

If you’re feeling the negative effects of poor work-life balance, there are several things you can do to manage your stress. Light exercise and plenty of rest are a good first step to feeling better. You can also meditate, pray, and use a journal to find some peace in your life. If you’re struggling with stress and burnout from poor work-life balance, it might be necessary to seek professional help. A therapist can provide insight and coping skills to help you achieve your work-life balance and stability. Another way to handle stress and burnout is to spend more time engaging with your hobbies. Doing something you enjoy reduces stress and can help your perception of work-life balance.

6. Unplug and Disconnect

Part of keeping a balance between your personal and professional life is setting boundaries between work time and personal time. The easiest way to do this is unplug when you can, during your time outside of work. Turn off your computer and silence notifications so you can effectively focus on your needs and remove yourself from work. Apart from turning off your work-related devices and notifications, enjoying some free time without technology can be beneficial to your work-life balance as well. It’s no secret that too much time spent on our phones is bad for our mental health. So, consider switching off your screens in favor of journaling, taking a walk, or doing a tech-less hobby you enjoy.

7. Practice Self-Care

Another way to maintain your work-life balance is to regularly practice self-care. Work-life balance is all about keeping yourself healthy and stable, and many different activities can accomplish that, like exercise and rest, as well as your hobbies. Practicing self-care can involve finding ways to relax and de-stress. Activities that make you feel calm and comforted can help you maintain work-life balance. These can be things like meditation, writing, taking walks, watching a favorite movie, and even a spa service.

Tip #1

Work-life balance doesn’t just fall to workers to accomplish, and it’s often a joint effort with their employers. There are many things that a manager can do to promote healthy work-life balance for their team. 

Tip #2

Employers can support their staff’s work-life balance with things like flexible work time, or hybrid working arrangements that give employees the option to work from home. Be up front with your staff about their paid time off and ensure that they take the time allotted to them.

Tip #3

A good company culture can lend itself to work-life balance for everyone. Showing support to your employees and keeping communication open and honest will encourage a healthy working environment and reduce stress. Using online sources like CakeResume can help you clarify your healthy work culture, brand, and employer practices. Follow CakeResume for more employer advice!

Maintaining good work-life balance is a difficult task that many students and workers struggle with. It’s important to manage your work-life balance so that you can reduce stress and increase your health and happiness. There are many things you can do today to improve your harmony between work and life, so don’t wait for burnout before you explore these strategies. Work-life balance is a process and not a destination, so don’t be hard on yourself if you struggle with it in the beginning. With some small adjustments, you can begin to find balance between your personal and professional life.

--- Originally written by Tiffany Quinn ---