Top 5 Tips to Achieve Work-Life Balance

Whether you are an employee, business owner, independent professional, or involved in any other work, you are most likely to juggle multiple professional and personal responsibilities. Unless you strike a balance between the two, leading a healthy life would be next to impossible.

If you need some practical tips for improving your work-life balance, we have the perfect solution for it via our list of top five actionable ones. But before venturing into the specifics, let’s understand what creating a work-life balance means.

What Is Work-Life Balance?

Though many of us want to bring a work-life balance, it could often remain elusive. But what does work-life balance mean? The work-life balance definition refers to the balance between your work and other non-work activities. This means after you spend time handling your work-related responsibilities, you have time to do things that nourish you as an individual and help you care for yourself.

Be it spending time with friends and family, enjoying a hobby, meditating or hitting the gym, going on a walk, visiting the spa, or simply lazing on your couch to catch your favourite TV, work-life balance is all about striking a balance between the time you spend at work and the time you spend on other non-work activities.

If you feel all you do is work, it’s time to think about work-life balance. With the boundaries between your professional and personal life blurring further after COVID-19 struck and people were forced to work from home, creating and improving your work-life balance has become all the more important. As many people continue to work remotely or under a hybrid model, figuring out a way to achieve that tricky work-life balance has become vital for your overall health and well-being.

Your 5 Step-Guide to a Better Work-Life Balance

We bring you the top five ways to create a better work-life balance, which are worth implementing to reduce stress, lower the risk of burnout, and enjoy an improved sense of well-being.

There’s nothing called an ideal work-life balance: It’s crucial to accept that there’s no “perfect” work-life balance. You should try to achieve a realistic work-life balance. For example, you can focus more on work on some days of the week and balance it out by spending time with your loved ones or engaging in a hobby during the rest of the days.
Incorporate micro-breaks in your work routine: Did you know even a 30-60 second micro-break can help reduce stress, boost concentration, productivity, and engagement, and improve your well-being significantly? You could stretch your body, go fetch a cup of coffee or a glass of water, or simply take a walk around your office floor or your home (if you are working remotely) to “get away from” the task at hand and come back refreshed. Since humans transition from a state of full focus and alertness gradually into physiological fatigue every 90 minutes as found by The Energy Project, it pays to be mindful of taking short micro-breaks.
Don’t be shy about asking for flexible work schedules: You should have honest and open conversations about your work needs and problems with your manager or employer. If you feel overwhelmed with work or are juggling certain pressing responsibilities at home (caring for a baby or elderly parents), there’s no harm in discussing productive solutions and seeking a more flexible work routine, job sharing, a  compressed workweek, or other creative options.
Focus on prioritising your health: The first step of doing this is to recognise the importance of maintaining your mental fitness, physical health, and emotional well-being. Try building simple, yet effective actions into your daily life, such as doing physical exercises or yoga daily, meditating, keeping a gratitude journal that you fill daily, building and nurturing social connections, etc.
Learn to say “No”: For any professional, this is perhaps one of the hardest soft skills to learn and implement. Yet, it’s crucial for setting boundaries. You can do this by evaluating your day’s typical professional and personal demands and prioritising them. If you already have enough to keep you busy throughout the day, it pays to say “no” to colleagues who request you to handle a part of their daily work or a friend who requests you to babysit the kid, for instance. The key is to say “no” to matters that are of less priority, thus freeing up your time to attend to things that matter to you.

Final Words

You can’t achieve work-life balance in a day. It’s an ongoing and fluid procedure that needs patience because you will be continuously learning, integrating, and adapting as your priorities, interests, and circumstances undergo changes over time. You can begin by implementing the tips shared above. Don’t forget to assess your priorities periodically to check if they align with how you are spending your time and energy. If they don’t, make sure to bring in the necessary adjustments to create a healthy work-life balance.

Do you have an idea for a future blog or would like to share your thoughts on any particular topic?

It would be great to hear from you.

Take care, all the best.

Gary

Gary Pike, Founder & MD Right International

Tel: +441932 800222 Email: garypike@rightinternational.com

Right International is a market leading recruitment firm who specialise in sourcing the top talent across the claims and wider insurance market.