Try to balance your life

Since the pandemic, our lives changed.?The biggest impact was our work life balance.?We found ourselves working remotely and in doing so, our days started earlier – they went later into the night and by the time we returned to the field, we had unknowingly altered our internal “work clocks.”?I discovered I was emailing at 5am and responding at 10pm.?The days of the week started to blur, and I found my communication devises to be all consuming.?With the help of my wife, I changed how I approached work and through it learned to balance my life.?Ive read a number of articles on it and have taken the best from each along with my own personal insights to relay to you below.

These days, finding and maintaining work-life balance might seem impossible. While technology has made it feasible to complete work-related tasks at any time and from anywhere, it also means it’s harder for us to turn it off. Plus, with a million things vying for our attention it’s often difficult to determine where to place your focus.

?When it comes to blurring the lines between work and life, retailers are notoriously overworked. It makes sense because your input is directly correlated with the success of your business. There’s no safety net, so why wouldn’t you want to give it 110% at all times?

?Overworking, however, isn’t just tiring; it can be detrimental to your health. Impatience, Insomnia, Forgetfulness, Mood Swings, Restlessness, Temper changes are just some of the health related items that can become very real.

5 tips for better work-life balance

1. Examine your situation.?Think about what your most important values are and how you want to spend your time. Once you’ve established that, you can calculate small changes you can make that will have a big impact overall, such as forcing yourself to have a lunch break, exercise or a daily chat with a friend.

2. Manage other people’s expectations.?Set boundaries by telling colleagues and clients when you will and won’t be working, so they don’t expect you to be available 24/7. Be honest to yourself about your needs. Let your boss know which regular activities in your personal life are non-negotiable, whether it’s putting your children to bed or doing yoga – whatever it is that really matters for you.

3. Take care of your health. Ensure you get enough sleep and exercise by including it in your routine, and make sure to reward yourself for your hard work by treating yourself every now and then. To do this you might need to “delegate where you can, to free up your time for what’s important.” Ask for extra resources if you need them.?Don’t suffer in silence

4. Learn to say no.?If you need to work late constantly just to get by, let your boss know that your workload is unsustainable. And if you tend to put other’s needs before your own, you need to learn to say “no” occasionally to new projects that will eat up your time and won’t contribute to achieving your personal objectives.

5. Plan fun activities for your personal time.?Get organized with family and friends, to ensure your personal time is fulfilling. Connecting digitally is important to a lot of us right now but try to get some down time away from that as well. Turn off electronic devices for a certain time period every evening or weekend so that you can give your full attention to the people that are most important to you. Try and follow a daily routine that includes some time for yourself every week that’s unrelated to your career.

Balance can feel tricky to achieve. The steps above can help.?Even somehting as simple as adding your personal schedule to your work schedule can help you dedicate the time to yourself that you need.?Once you find something to alter your perspective you can begin to find ways to make work feel less consuming and free up focus for the other parts of your life – even when times are challenging.