Minor Changes That Can Have a Major Impact on Your Work-Life Balance

Productivity, reaching your goals and thriving in your career can all be extremely rewarding, but without the right strategies in place, finding the work-life balance that’s best for you can seem elusive. There are some minor changes you can make, however, that will hopefully allow you to make the same progress at work without sacrificing your personal life. Here are a few things to consider:

Get Organized

Often, the answer to greater productivity isn’t harder work or more time in the day, but rather, it comes down to using your time more efficiently. What on your to-do list needs to be done today? What is a bigger-picture objective that you hope to achieve before 2024? Define these and it will help you to start structuring your time more efficiently. Similarly, don’t be afraid to plan your private life in a similar way. By scheduling in ‘me’ time or time to make that phone call or attend that birthday, you create a healthier work-life balance, which means when you do switch the focus back to work, you’ll be more content and focused too.

Learn How to Disconnect

It’s always tempting to work that extra hour, answer that phone call on Saturday afternoon, or check that email inbox at 4 am when we can’t sleep. Although extra hours are essential at times, it’s important to set boundaries and step away from work to take a break (whether we think we need it or not). That means leaving the laptop at home, setting our inbox to snooze, and turning off phone and social-media notifications — even for just a short while. Taking this time away not only allows a bit of breathing space, but will also help you reset and refresh. ?Then, when it’s time to work again, you can approach it with a fresh perspective. The world won’t end if we take a bit longer to reply to an email, and the benefits of hitting the pause button will be noticeable.

Find Ways to Dispel Doubt

We have all been there: things are going well at work until that voice of doubt creeps in. What if this fails? What if all my hard work doesn’t produce results? Failure is one of the main emotions holding professionals back from truly achieving their goals. Yet failure is something we should learn to accept, sit with, and learn from. There is always going to be risk in the business world but by recognizing our own strength and confidence in our abilities, we learn to not let doubt and fear define us; leaving us confident that our accomplishments are good enough.

If we want to be successful in the long term, we need to always be on the lookout for balance. It’s going to take a little experimentation to find what work best for you, but that work pays dividends almost immediately.

If you’d like to talk more about any of this, or if there’s something else I can be of assistance with, please reach out to me. I’m always happy to block off some time to connect.