As a person working from home for few years now, I understand that the idealistic view of work life balance might fail many times and can make us feel incapable of achieving work life balance.
So here are few of the tips which helped to feel that balance again.
Why I hate the terms “Work-life balance:
The term work- life balance makes me feel that work is not part of life thereby being at work is lifeless. Life has to happen outside of work; which cannot be true considering the amount of our life hours we spend working.
1. Find meaning in what you do:
I could feel you laughing at the above statement. Agreed, we all are not doctors saving lives or military folks saving the country. But there is something meaningful behind what we do, but it might take some digging to find sometimes. Even if you are in IT, helping a client in their business to become more customer centric or environmentally conscious is indeed a service; wouldn’t you agree?
2. Having a full day schedule:
We all keep our work calendar updated, but what about rest of the day? Particularly since many of us work from home, getting everything, I mean everything, like walking your dog, workout, family time etc. in calendar really helps.
3. The art of saying Yes or No:
The art of saying No is much talked about. Let’s assume you are done with your workday and just closed your laptop. Then your mobile gets a work-related ping which needs immediate attention. Sounds familiar? So ideally, we should say No. But is it practical always? not quite. That is where our skill of prioritization comes in picture. Sometimes we need to address certain things at work and compensate that later to our personal lives. Now that is an art in itself.
4. Be gentle on yourself:
How many days you would be in bed trying to sleep but a work-related problem keeps popping up in your thoughts?
We need to acknowledge the fact that our brain does not have a switch, flipping us back to Zen after work. So stop blaming yourself for not having perfect balance. Instead, some kind of reset routine, some sports, mindfulness exercises and such things can help.
So those were my practical tips.
Watch this in video format in below link:
