Time is getting faster, life is getting faster and sometimes it’s so hard to control all parts of your life to achieve the right balance between work and privacy. Work-life balance is a thing that has been discussed for years, nowadays most companies understand how important it is to maintain it and try to implement it into the working process. Unfortunately, there are still lots of businesses where people simply cannot have even a lunch break.
Also, work-life balance can have different meanings to different people, depending on their priorities. For instance, for one person it can be a balance between an opportunity to finish their work early and have time for family and friends, for another it can be a possibility to have a flexible schedule when they can work at the most suitable hours for them. Whilst, for another one it means you can spend even more time to improve your career.
Usually, under the work-life balance, we understand that people can have enough time to do their job and enough time to spend on their hobbies, family and other personal things. Unfortunately sometimes when one of these parts is taking too much energy from you another part can become more stressful and as a result, your productivity can get lower on both sides.
What can you do to achieve work-life balance?
Make a review of your lifestyle
Here try to pay attention to two parts of your life – work and free time.
- Ask yourself questions, which help you understand if you have this balance or not. For example, not only how much time you spend at work, but mainly what quality it is. Because if you go to the office, but mainly spend time there procrastinating and destructing and by the end of the working day realise that you haven’t done your tasks, it obviously means that you need to work with time management. And only after fixing this issue, you can make a step on the way to achieving work-life balance.
- Another good question can be – do I spend enough time with my family? Am I satisfied with how I spend weekends? The main thing is, to be honest with yourself, in this case, these questions will help you to analyse where you are and which sphere needs to be improved.
Rate your priorities
Try to set achievement goals (actually it works with both work and life spheres) and make a plan on how you will reach them. Then analyse your to-do list, exclude tasks which can have little or no value at all and you will see how your life quality will be changed towards work-life balance. Pay attention to your productive time and time when you’re low-energy, according to this, put all important tasks in these time slots when your brain is fresh and energetic. As a result, you can be more productive at work and have more free time after.
Set your work boundaries
In a senior level position you will be able to take on the most complex cases. You should know and understand how to make a service from scratch so that it works without any bugs. In addition to theoretical knowledge anWork-life balance boundaries are about your time, emotional and physical conditions. It helps us to manage our lives better. Setting boundaries at work helps you to avoid burnout and we talk not only about burnout at work but also in your personal life too. Understand when you should say no, learn how to delegate your tasks effectively, set up your schedule and stick to it. For example, you work from home, try to finish work at the set hour, because quite often people, especially those who work from home, forget about the time and can work till late at night. If it’s your personal life and somebody wants you to spend more time with them, but you want to relax and be on your own, just say about it, always choose your health, mental and physical first.
Quality of free time
And last but not least, simply don`t forget to have a proper rest before the meeting, because fresh brains have In different social media, TV says that we should spend our free time productively, be more successful, more sociable etc. However, even if you feel down and understand that you need a proper rest, have a lazy day, don’t blame yourself. Because the main idea is that the way you spend your free time affects on your mood and quality of life. There are loads of things to do in life. Somebody likes sports activities, somebody prefers going to the cinemas, meeting with friends, reading books, travelling etc. The main idea is to do what fulfils your life with bright moments and gives you positive energy. In this case you will be more cheerful, have more inspiration and enough strength to do your job properly.
Choose the right employer
Nowadays, especially in the IT industry, there are loads of companies which provide different benefits to their employees. Industry has finally got that happy employees = successful business. Companies which are committed to create a friendly environment, support work-life balance usually provide flexible work schedules, medical insurance, organise special events to diversify corporate life and are always open to the dialogue with their employees. A good employer respects the free time of their employees and knows that their productivity depends on how good they can rest. With the right employer you always will be able to build up a better work-life balance and improve the quality of your life.
