Work and life are the major parts of our lives where time is most utilized. We eat, sleep, work and play. That’s basically it. For most of us, the balance between all of this can either be easy or a struggle. We sometimes feel like two different people, like we are leading a double life. There are the “work me” and the “home me” personas that we all have. While one is more professional and focused, the other is laid back and relaxed.
The biggest question we all tend to ask is if there is a perfect way to balance both. We don’t want work-life bleeding into our home life or vice versa. Some people make it look easy, being able to switch back and forth like it is second nature without even a thought. Others tend to have to center themselves before going to work and remind themselves when to relax when they get home.
Creating the perfect work-life balance shouldn’t make you feel the need to overthink, over-plan, or even overdo it. It should be a transition that happens to you naturally like falling asleep or breathing. You want to not put more pressure on yourself to create a perfect work-life balance as most likely the added stress won’t help. The goal is to find out a way to perfectly find that balance that suits you.
You want to of course avoid comparing others’ tactics to accomplishing this because it is never a “one size fits all” type of situation. Most people spend months perfecting the right path for the work-life balance but most of them would say it starts with finding a good springboard and going from there.
The best way to do this is by starting with a schedule. Scheduling things out such as work tasks, breaks and even things in your personal life is a great way to stay organized. This is also helpful to know when exactly to make that change from work to everyday life.
Start small and schedule just one workday and one personal day. Do the basics and keep it to about five tasks a day on both.
It can be something small like scheduling your lunch break or reminding yourself to take out the garbage when you get home. The following week add three days with ten tasks each.
After doing this for a couple of weeks you may feel that you have a better rhythm and can start to schedule things more in-depth. With a lot of us working from home these days due to the pandemic, we are having to blend home and work more than we would like. Scheduling like this is going to be very helpful when it comes to clocking out and focusing on yourself.
One reason why this method is perfect for working from home is due to the fact that some people find it hard to flip the switch from work to relax at home because they are already at home. The scheduling method will help your brain understand the difference so that subconsciously it will be more familiar and easier to do.
With working from home and being in your PJs most of the day we feel the need to relax more, but those nice little reminders to stay on task and relax after work, help you focus much more. The key is to pace yourself with this. You want to ease into it otherwise it will just feel like more work and not very useful for you. This is of course is very much something you want to avoid. The strategy here is to feel more productive with your balance and not counterproductive.
There are many other ways of course that you can strengthen the balance between work and life. Some people feel scheduling doesn’t work for them, so they aim for a different approach, such as only listening to music on the drive home from work as opposed to both ways. The reason why this is useful is it is a way to trigger your brain to relax on the way home from work instead of relaxing to and from.
It is a simple tactic to mentally help with the work-life balance.
Another way you can better your work-life balance is to remind yourself of the differences between them. Mental focus is a powerful thing, so if you can harness that to whatever you need, you are going to be more successful in the things you do. Remind yourself that the most you should focus on are during the work hours and relax when you are at home, or of course when necessary on breaks. This tactic is good as it can help with the switching of mental focus easily.
We never want to focus on work while we are at home, so using this reminder can be nice. Take a deep breath and before you walk into work remind yourself that “This is work. Time to focus and be successful”. You can do the same thing before you leave work to take a deep breath before you walk out or even as you walk to your car and remind yourself “I am off work now. Now it is time to do the things I enjoy in life or need to get done at home”.
In a way, it is kind of like having your own little reminder mantra that after a while your mind will have that reminder stored away, and again it will help become second nature. This tactic like any tactic could work or not work for you. The best thing to do is try a few things out and once you find something that works for you, try it out for a couple of weeks to see if you can do it every day.
The work-life balance struggle is real. We all want to not have one side of the scale tipped against our favor on any day. You just have to remember that like anything this takes time but the perfect work-life balance is easily in your grasp.
