As a senior copywriter by day and blogger and web entrepreneur many nights during the week I have to be careful to make sure I’m getting enough work – life balance. If not, I can really feel the stress, fatigue and all the other ill feelings that come with letting work overload my life.
I’ve been working in my professional career for 14 years and you’d think I have it all figured out. Keep work over here and the rest of my life over there and all will be good! Ha, that’s far from my reality more often thank I’d like to admit. Work has it’s way of creeping into every area of our lives and if we’re not careful we’ll burn out and wear ourselves down. I think we’re especially susceptible to imbalance when we love our work and have a passion for it. The work just seems to take over at that point.
While I’m by far no expert at getting enough work-life balance I still thought I would share a few tips I’ve found useful and try to follow in my own life.
Tips to Get More Work-Life Balance
Find a job with an employer that believes in work-life balance and it will mean more money for you to buy your first house or your first luxury car.
Work-Life Balance
This seems like a no-brainer, but I would have never mentioned this tip if my current employer wasn’t so up-front about their desire to provide work-life balance to their people. We have a culture of people that are committed to hard work and doing a great job. However, our culture also respects the need for family and the personal lives of our people.
Not a lot of companies are as forthcoming about work-life balance and don’t make it a part of their human resources program. I can’t stress enough to find out how serious an employer is about work-life balance during the interview process. If they can’t speak to how they instill this in their culture you need to look elsewhere!
Set expectations with your boss
While an employer may support work-life balance you still have to set expectations with your boss. You have responsibilities in this too! Make sure you work out a reasonable work schedule with your boss. Perhaps you work 7 AM – 4 PM versus normal business hours. You might even come in later and leave later. You need to also make sure your boss knows your priorities outside of work and that you’ll be sticking to them unless it’s a special circumstance. This might mean no cell phone calls after dinner or stating you won’t be checking email at night. I know these things may sound like I’m crazy, especially into today’s work culture, but you have to set these expectations and your boss needs to understand them and be willing to work with you.
Set your limits and stick to them
Another one of your responsibilities is to set your limits and stick to them. I know some people may work into the evening and after dinner. Some people can’t work after 4 PM everyday because of family or other personal responsibilities. That’s fine and I think we have to recognize everyone has a different definition of work-life balance as well as different personal lives. But whatever your definition of work-life balance is you need to know what your limits are and stick to them if you want to remain stress free and healthy.
Keep your focus on the most important priorities in life
You have to know what the most important things are in life and make sure they are your top priorities all the time. I think I can safely so that work should never be the most important priority in life for anyone! However, why do we let work take-over and control much of our personal lives. We read email at night, return phone calls, let work creep into all of our thoughts and so on. Our focus should be on spending quality time with our families and doing activities at night that renew us for the next day.
Learn to say no
So, what do you do if you’re in a work environment without proper work-life balance? What do you do if your boss keeps pushing for more and more? What do you do when the emails are flooding your inbox at night when everyone decides it’s more important to work than anything else? Say no! Truly, it’s in our own control to tell our boss that now is not a good time. It’s in our own control to avoid reading email. We have more choices than we realize sometimes. But, what if I get fired, you might ask? Personally, if I get fired because I’m not keeping up at night, then I’m going to trust that God has a better plan and is saving me from a lot of pain! Saying no is a personal responsibility we must uphold to protect our health, focus on more important personal priorities and stay healthy to perform the best job we can for our employers.
This article was important for me to write because I always need to remind myself of these tips to make sure I get enough work-life balance in my own life. It’s not easy when you have a demanding job, lot’s of responsibilities and when you’re a type "A" personality like me! However, I believe both employers and the employees have a responsibility to support and stand up for work-life balance. After all, the company will reap great benefit in the end as the employee will be more motivated and likely to stay with the company longer.
I'm Lukas and I'm senior copywriter at MediaFusion Marketing. I have a masters in marketing at the University of Economics Prague but I'm also passionate about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
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