Work-life balance and stress
Do you live to work or work to live?
A common cause of stress is not having a work-life balance!
Firstly, what does a good work-life balance look like?
- Meeting your deadlines at work while still having time for friends and hobbies
- Having enough time to sleep properly and eat well
- Not worrying about work when you’re at home
Research shows that we are more productive if we have a good work-life balance and businesses that ensure this will have lower attrition.
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It’s so easy to get into the habit of letting your job take over let’s talk about the pitfall and how we get ourselves in this situation.
- You start a new job and want to make a good impression so when the boss calls out of hours you are eager to please you answer the phone.
- You have so much to do that you don’t plan your day and just get stuck in.
- Your working day is 8 hours, and you plan 8 hours of work.
- You are concerned asking for help or saying you have too much work is a sign of weakness or that you are not good at your job.
- You are not clear on the priorities or objectives.
- It is the norm in your workplace and your colleagues do the same, working long hours has now become a habit.
Top tips for work-life balance
- Pause, review, and reflect – Are you prioritising work over your life, your health, and your relationships?
- Make some changes
- Don’t answer emails or calls out of hours
- Don’t have your laptop out at home or your emails on your phone
- If you work from home, set up a space that is work and when you finish for the day you leave that space.
- Use your out of office to make clear to customers or colleagues when you are available
- Only plan 6 hours of work into an 8-hour day, something will always interrupt your day, so you need to have the tell to deal with unexcepted urgent actions
- Prioritise tasks
- Use a planner – outlook for instance and share it with your boss so they can see when you have gaps in your schedule or when you are busy
- ASK for HELP and be clear if your workload is too much.
- Track the hours you are working, if consistently working over your contracted hours, this needs to be discussed with your line manager.
- Plan your annual leave for the year so you know when your breaks are and ensure you completely switch off.