Lead your way to a better Life Work Balance - Habits on improving your overall wellbeing

For the final part of this mini-series Daryl Woodhouse will focus on the last two pillars of his 'Life Work Effect?' Methodology which are Life Work Balance and Wellbeing. This activity packed article will again focus on various different habits that you can adopt to your daily life in order to improve you personal Life Work Balance.

Life Work Balance

Welcome and congratulations on reaching this chapter which is all about the third pillar of the Life Work Effect?.

Traditionally in business it has been called ‘work life balance’, which always baffled me because I believe we were born to live first, and then work came into our lives later as a means of funding and supporting the life we wanted to achieve. Others have called for it to be called ‘life balance’, which in my view can work just as well as ‘life work balance’.

Employees who overwork report more health problems, and as a direct consequence are less productive and use more sick days. Long working hours led to 745 000 deaths from stroke and ischemic heart disease in 2016, a 29 per cent increase since 2000.

The more you work outside of normal working hours the less productive you will be.

Spend more time with family and friends, enjoy yourself and do something you love, all of which boosts our productivity and wellbeing further to achieve more and live happier.

Habit #33

Map the life you want to live

Too many business and personal development plans focus deeply on achieving work and career goals.

It used to be that way for me too, until it contributed to my major burnout.

On the positive side, that experience forced me to go deeper on specifying my life goals. With a white canvas approach, I described the life I wanted to live which included modelling my time into a calendar schedule with carefully balanced, dedicated time for family, fitness, friends, sleep, eating, hobbies and sensible work hours. I also set goals for savings, pension planning and income.

Once I was clear on what my ‘perfect life and week’ would look like, I then set the business/career goals, action plan and life work balance required to make that life happen. From there the goals turned into results pretty quickly for me and I now would never go back to my old way of ‘the always on, long hours work, work, work culture’, and of course I had to since dedicate my work to helping others achieve what they want for their life and work without overworking or burning out.

Habit #35

Life balance (if kids have taken over your diary)

If you are similar to me as a parent with young kids then you might relate to noticing a shift of how much your life has changed. No doubt being a parent is possibly the most satisfying joys life can offer us. However, it does often mean your life and work is planned around the kids needs - school runs, term dates, after school clubs, playdates with friends, parties, washing and so much more.

I have met many working parents that feel their waking hours are so dominated and dedicated to their kids that they don’t have time to relax as much as they would like, or to keep up their fitness, see their friends etc. I totally relate, and one of the best tips I have discovered for this is to set your alarm to be up everyday before the kids. Use that time to start the day right: do what you want.

For myself and many others who swear by this, it will be going for a run or some other exercise you enjoy followed by a nice shower or relaxing bath. It is a super way to begin the day, giving yourself an energy boost and feel-good factor. If you leave the fitness session for later in the day, there is a good chance something else will get in the way, or even you’ll be too tired at that point. “Hang on a minute” I hear you think. “I’ll be falling asleep in the afternoon if I get up any earlier”.

This was my initial reaction when this best practice was first introduced to me. The answer was simple: go to bed earlier.

Whilst feeling reluctant towards this, I gave it a go for a few weeks and it absolutely worked for the better. No doubt. I know you can do it too and reap the benefits.

Habit #37

Let time be your new best friend

Time flies by when you’re having fun. Everyone experiences this regularly, but most don't understand how dangerous it can be until after the damage is done.

Let’s say you take a small break to go outside for 2 minutes for fresh air and a leg stretch. You take your phone to check a few messages. When you finish checking your messages, you open up Facebook or any other social media to aimlessly scroll through endless news feeds, friends photo shares, comments and more. The next thing you know, 15minutes have passed and now you're running behind on work.

To prevent this from happening, set an alarm for how long you are allowing yourself to take a break. Make sure you listen to that alarm too, it can be tempting to just shut it off and spend an extra minute or two on your phone but just remember why you set that alarm in the first place.

This does not only apply to work breaks. In your larger free time you can still set yourself a time limit as to how long you can spend relaxing or doing any other activity so that you don't find yourself losing track of time and falling behind.

Habit #38

Meditate

A study by the National Business Group on Health (2018) shows that meditation can increase employee productivity by 120% .

Meditation calms the mind. When you do this regularly you learn how to control your emotional impulses and specifically direct your attention. It’ll also help you control your temptations, so you won't be as tempted to reach for your phone when working or to hit that snooze button when your morning wake up alarm buzzes.

Meditation, just like yoga, will improve your overall quality of life. It helps you to have a healthier relationship with work and better, happier life work balance decisions will come more naturally with less resistance.

Amongst many other known benefits, meditation has been evidenced to:

Habit #41

Know your limits

Everyone has limits, both physically and mentally. It's important that you take a step back at times and understand when you are reaching your limit. You don't want to overdo it and regret it later. Make sure to take small breaks when it feels needed or even longer ones if you have to!

Wellbeing

Last and certainly not least we have the 4th epic pillar of the Life Work Effect?: Wellbeing.

With the other three pillars combined there are hundreds of habits you can integrate into your life and work activities towards becoming a better version of yourself. Choosing one or two new daily habits will be a great start, however it will not be enough to help you fulfil your potential in getting the best from the joy and success that life can offer. There is always more we can do and most habits only take minutes to implement with great upside results.

If you are already doing some or all of the following wellbeing habits, then you will know this is really valuable. However, I challenge you to identify other methods to implement more healthier habits into your daily routine. Keep track of your Life Work Effect? score with a fresh calculation every 2-4 weeks and consider making it visible on your whiteboard/office wall.

Furthermore, ask yourself this: do I need to add more healthy habits or is there more potential to be achieved by spending more time applying my existing habits? What about if I apply them more often as well?

I’m sure if you pause to reflect and make notes for intended action then this will give plenty of food for thought and I cannot wait to hear how you get on.

Habit #42

Prioritise your health

A good first step to making your health a higher priority in life is recognizing the importance of maintaining your physical health, mental fitness and emotional wellbeing.

You don’t have to do anything so intense and excessive. Start with taking on small habits like walking, meditating, socialising, and be consistent with it. Consistency is key so if you start going out of your way to specifically improve your health, you will not only see your energy levels rise but you also will notice your productivity increase along with greater ideas and performance outputs.

Habit #43

Do great, feel great.

A happy ‘you’ is more likely to have a positive relationship with family, friends and colleagues. You will be more confident facing new challenges and handle stress better.

Habit #45

Yoga

Yoga is one of the most beneficial all round activities that will help you in every aspect of your life. It stimulates the prefrontal lobe of your brain, where complex behaviours will occur such as critical decision making, planning and higher thinking. Productivity levels will increase when this part of the brain has more grey matter and is stimulated regularly.

Yoga can also have a huge impact on other aspects of your life, for example it can:

Habit #46

Breakfast and brain food

Breakfast is the most important meal of your day. Studies show that eating a proper breakfast improves concentration, energy and memory throughout the day. These positives in turn increase your ability to problem solve, think creatively and boost cognitive performance.

What does a proper breakfast look like?

Avoid too many refined carbohydrates. Do your best to not overload your breakfast with foods like bagels, muffins, toast and cereal that are going to spike your blood sugar levels leading to a crash during the day.

Find the balance. Lean protein, whole grains, low-fat dairy plus fruit and vegetables give great options for healthy, tasty meals. Not every breakfast will be perfectly balanced so find a system that works for you which will implement the foods needed throughout the week.

You fuel your body for energy and to keep hunger at bay, but do you fuel your brain?

Hopefully you know the importance of food and water can have on the body, but I am always amazed during my client delivery at how few know about what is best for the brain. Just like certain things are good for your body, items such as dark chocolate, blueberries, pumpkin seeds and fatty oil fishes provide great nutrients for our brains. To help keep that brain as healthy as possible for the rest of your life, see how often you can get these and other good brain food items into your daily diet.

Habit #48

Create your own dedicated home workspace environment

With many more people working from home we will see more people become less productive, less healthy and less motivated. That doesn't mean that working from home is bad, it just needs some careful management and positive habits.

If you have the choice to take your workspace somewhere away from your bedroom or any other day to day ‘living’ area then do it. It is important that you have that mental associations separated, for example, it's nice to eat in a place where we don't sleep and it's nice to sleep in an area where we don't work.

Separating your space for work and daily life is important to prevent a huge drop in productivity, lower quality of sleep and less energy.

Where possible, create your own separate workspace and personalise it to your own interest. If you are limited in options due to finances, others in your household living and working there, or even with a lack of space, get creative!

You could create temporary ‘rooms within rooms’ with flexible free standing office partitions. You can then decorate those partitions with happy memory photos, motivational quotes on post-its, and you could drape faux leaves over the top for a botanical nature theme. For the value to your wellbeing, home relationships, productivity and work performance, this relatively small spend could prove to be priceless as it did for my family in our home.

Habit #49

Brain dumps

Ad hoc or even more frequent brain dumps are a great way to declutter and clear your mind of brain fog. It is easy to get entangled in our own thoughts and this is a great way to wash out all the useless and time consuming thoughts whilst capturing and making time to leverage the great ideas that could be hidden behind those grey mind clouds.

Habit #51

Learn to love cold showers

Cold showers are one of the most beneficial habits to implement into your daily routine. It’s something that some of the most successful people in the world do. Waking up early and jumping straight into a cold shower without hesitation. Now obviously you don't need to do it the second you wake up, you could do it after breakfast or after your morning exercise but, the best time to have one is most definitely in the morning.

Cold showers can relieve stress and stimulate the hormones opposing depression. Your overall energy level will increase if taken regularly which will set you up nicely for a productive day.

Doing this regularly will also strengthen your will and you’ll be encouraged to take on more challenging tasks in both life and work.

Habit #52

Make time for reflection and gratitude

Gratitude has been shown to increase our happiness, self-esteem, as well as improve our likeability and relationships. It can also increase your positivity and help you focus on what you have versus what you do not have.

5-10 minutes of calm and focus per day reflecting or journaling about gratitude is a great way to start and build from.

Habit #53

Affirmations

It is easy to get demotivated while working due to stress, boredom or distraction.

This can make you lose sight of your goals, or in other words you can forget what this job will help you achieve in the short and long term. Your ‘why’.

Affirmations can help strengthen self-worth, optimism, positivity and focus. By repeating affirmations at times when you feel low, bored, or tired, you can boost your own opinion of yourself and your confidence in your ability whilst reminding yourself about the positive benefits that sit in your future from achieving your goals.

Habit #57

Exercise often

Exercising increases your energy levels, tackles exhaustion and generally improves your wellbeing. Exercising allows you to feel happier and more energised thus making you more efficient, creative and productive at work.

People can get distracted at work because they feel tired, however with your energy levels rising from exercise, getting distracted will be less common allowing more room and time for being productive.

Exercise doesn’t have to be so intense, you don’t need to consistently run for hours a day. It's really simpler than you think.

Walking - Is proven to be the most effective form of exercise. Many studies show that you don't have to take 10,000 steps a day but instead just getting 5000 steps or walking for 30 minutes can: increase cardiovascular fitness, increase bone strength, reduce excess body fat and many more.

Yoga - There are many types of yoga so there's no doubt you will find one which is comfortable for you. As mentioned in habit #45, it is a brilliant way to balance your body, mind and spirit. There are many benefits to yoga such as reduced stress, reduced risk of injury, increased concentration and many more.

Strength training - This is popular for bodybuilding however, it is also one of the most effective ways to relieve stress, ease tension and reduce anxiety. It can also improve heart health, lower risk of injury, boosts selfesteem and improves mobility and flexibility.

Conclusion

There you go, you did it: you just acquired a mix of new know-how and reminders of habits you can adopt under the ‘4 Epic Life Work Effect? Pillars of Smarter Hybrid Working’. Congratulations on making this investment of time in yourself, and now for your own best interests please ensure you gain the maximum benefit by adopting some or all of these habits for more time, more regularly. Even if you start with one new habit per week for a total of 12 weeks, you can enjoy a boost to your current Life Work Effect? score. If implemented properly, then you will notice the positive impact in a range of ways across the 4 Epic Life Work Effect? pillars of:

1. Strategy & Planning
2. Productivity Mastery
3. Life Work Balance
4. Wellbeing

Life can be tragically be too short, yet there are so many joys that our beautiful world can offer us, so I encourage you to do more to make the best of it.

Applying all or just some of the highlighted habits under the 4 Epic 'Life Work Effect?' Pillars of Smarter Hybrid Working shared in this mini-series will help you work smarter, achieve more and live happier. If you find it as helpful as I hope you will, then please do share it with others in your team, friends circle or even your household.

I wish you the very best life work success and would love to hear your feedback and results, so do reach out to me via my website or social media.

Yours Faithfully,

Daryl Woodhouse aka The Smarter Work Pro?

Daryl Woodhouse ?helps organisations optimise ROI. Daryl is on a mission to create a smarter future of work and life. As The Smarter Work Pro?, and creator of the Life Work Effect?, Daryl specialises in growth strategy, performance improvement, hybrid work productivity and burnout prevention.

Through keynotes, workshops, programmes and his first of its kind mobile app saving hard-workers more than 10.7 hours per week, Daryl equips leaders and teams with the inspiration, skills and tools to work smarter, achieve more and live happier without overworking.

Read more about Daryl!