5 ways to take control of your work-life balance.
With the world having changed drastically since the pandemic, working from home or becoming a solopreneur, has increasingly blurred the lines between where your work life ends and your home life begins. Meaning you can be stuck in this eternal cycle of constantly feeling like you can’t switch off and relax.
This can be detrimental in a lot of ways mainly affecting your mental and physical health, but also making you less efficient, productive and motivated. To reach your personal and professional goals, it is best to lead a balanced life.
Below are 5 examples of how best to navigate the new world and create a health work-life balance (that works for you).
Set Boundaries
Having work emails / accounts set up on your personal phone, means you are contactable at all hours of the day and night. With this little separation from your work, you are increasing the amount of time in a day that you need to ‘switched on’, this intensifies the possibility of you reaching ‘burn out’. Although some aspects of your business require quick response, even setting up an ‘out of office’ so that all emails have an answering and expected timeframe for a full response can ease some of the burden.
Make time for yourself!
Communicate Effectively and Manage Expectations
Linking in to Setting Boundaries, if you communicate with your clients / customers that there times that you will be away from ‘your desk’ there will be less expectations on you. It will allow both you and your client / customer to effectively work in the allotted time, ensuring goals are met and downtime is scheduled.
Daily Planning & To Do Lists
Knowing that an allotted time for your times, it’s beneficial to set yourself a schedule for each day or a To Do List for your daily / weekly tasks. This way you can ensure that you have everything noted that you need to do and it’s set out in an achievable timeframe – reducing stress and increasing productivity.
Schedule in Time for You
Alongside prioritising your work tasks, making sure you have ‘You Time’ is vitally important. This doesn’t always mean down time, this could be for life admin tasks such as getting your car serviced, the food shop or giving your home a spring clean. These tasks usually weigh on your mind and seem overwhelming when you have to fit them in with your work and tine to relax.
Have a Designated Work Space
Whether you are lucky enough to have an entire office, a desk space or if it’s just some space on the dining table – having a set up that is just for work will enable you to focus better than just sitting on the sofa or propping yourself up on kitchen side. Try to create some space that will be clear and not cluttered with your homelife.
It is always a good thing to be ambitious but you won’t get far if you look after yourself. To get you and your business going the distance get a routine going and process in place to protect yourself and make sure you are giving the best you can to you and your clients!
You got this!!