Balancing Your Professional and Personal Life – how to have your cake and eat it too.
As more of us transition back to the office with fewer WFH days, we hear the struggles of maintaining a healthy work/life balance. The idea of excelling in our career while having quality time with our family and friends (not to mention – alone time) can seem out of reach. But we’ve collated for you simple, efficient tweaks. These adjustments can help you optimise your week to enjoy a harmonious lifestyle between work and play.
What is Work-Life Balance?
In short, work-life balance is the equilibrium between equally juggling their career demands and personal life. Work-life balance can go askew with increased work hours, career changes, having children and increased responsibilities at home. A healthy work-life balance benefits mood, career satisfaction, and productivity while lowering the risk of burnout.
Why Hybrid Working Complicates Work-Life Balance
While hybrid working (working from home and the office) has produced flexibility within careers – it’s created new challenges. Working from home blurs the lines between work and leisure – with your laptop within easy reach, it’s easy to follow up on an email or edit a spreadsheet at home. There are also more distractions at home, making your work less efficient.
Tips to Manage Hybrid Working and Optimise your Work-Life Balance
In office? Prioritise face-to-face meetings.
There’s certainly a time and place for Zoom meetings. They’re no doubt efficient and help connect long-distance colleagues and clients. However, there will always be irreplaceable value in in-person meetings. You can build better connections and bond than via a screen. When you’re in the office, prioritise these meetings and save the screentime work for home.
Commute efficiently
Work commute can dissolve valuable time. If it takes you an hour to get to work – this adds up to eight hours in 5 day working week. So how can you use this time productively? If you take public transport, check emails while on the go to hit the ground running as soon as you step inside the office. If you drive, make phone calls (hands-free, of course) to organise your personal or work-life. You can also use your phone to dictate a to-do list for the day.
Set boundaries
Identify your priorities, communicate them clearly and stick with them. This might mean saying ‘no’ more often. Whether it’s clocking off and not taking phone calls between certain times or ensuring you have a real lunch break every day. Also, don’t be afraid of turning on your out-of-office email. Also, priorities change daily. Some days may focus more on work, others on family or yourself. If you need help figuring out where to start, Forbes created a great list on setting boundaries for better work-life balance.
Block distractions
While technology has made employees accessible round the clock, it has also created useful tools to help manage hybrid working. Apps like Freedom block apps and websites, minimising distractions so you can focus and maximise productivity. During the day, block social media and online shopping apps. In the evening, block work and email apps. And always use Do Not Disturb overnight, so notifications don’t wake you.
Find a hobby you love
Besides work and family – consider your own self-care needs. Find something that makes you happy and fulfilled outside work and family admin. Grocery shopping is not and never will be leisure time. You can’t pour from an empty cup, so ensure you find ways to top up your own. It could be anything from hiking, painting, playing a musical instrument or gardening.
Communicate
Communicate with your manager, partner and family. Make sure you have a clear understanding with your manager about your work priorities – so you can work and execute outcomes effectively. Speak to your partner on stress points; for instance, do you struggle to leave the house in time after organising the children? Find a way to share the morning-rush tasks.
Get comfortable with being imperfect
Let’s be honest; perfectionism is a fallacy and leads to feelings of dissatisfaction, low self-esteem and failure. While many of us develop perfectionistic tendencies from a young age, as we get older, our responsibilities increase, making it impossible to be flawless in everything we do. It’s never too early to start letting go of these tendencies (and not feeling like a failure when you do).
Start small
Like we don’t believe in crash diets, we don’t believe in expecting everything to come together at once. Start with small changes; you don’t have to reinvent the wheel overnight. Begin by mapping out your priorities and structuring boundaries around this. Maybe it’s not having your phone at the dinner table? Build from here and enjoy success from small wins.
