On a general note, finding how to maintain a work life balance is crucial to the daily endeavors of every working class individual, Fortunately, experience play a vital role in this routine adjustments of every career individual. Often thrown into a world where they seem not very prepared for are starters and zealous young professionals, nonetheless, many individuals still struggle to make this balance despite having accumulated so much work experiences and social life knowledge. Sadly, these experiences and knowledge tilt towards making moves and not striking a balance.
How to maintain a work life balance
Work life comes around with lots of personal life intrusions, especially when the commitment and eagerness to deliver is on the cards. The zeal to grow, the passionate quest to yield results in office all create imbalances on one end. But in order to grow and maintain conformity, these imbalances and balances have to come into play for work-personal life struggles to reach a stable point.
Usually, we say that movement oriented growths are the product of imbalance while stability is the product of balance.
Sadly, oftentimes when we approach this balance, movement may stop, growth may stop too. it’ll be therefore difficult to arrive at an accurate edge, and this is where seeking compromise is inevitable. Hence, we have to pay more attention to what matters most to us as individual needs and priorities differ.
Personal Experience
As a career oriented researcher and school teacher, being able to work effectively and constantly continue to pay attention to other things that matter was a dilemma. At first, family concerns, social responsibilities, and healthy practices lagged, if not consumed by the needs of my students, then I am buried in a research work, and the resulting effect was obvious, my family stopped complaining of my diminishing attention towards them, Diana never reminds Dad of anything anymore, and I realized myself that I had paid more attention to my career and less attention to my primary responsibilities. Hence the need for time management to help identify how to maintain a work life balance.
Now if you are facing such a reality where your work or home duties take more time than required from you, you can follow these few steps, it worked for me and while your reasons and personal view of how to maintain work life balance may not exactly be the same with mine, you could find a few things that may be helpful in your specifics.
Importance of maintaining Work life balance
Often people are so engrossed in their job that they ignore several other things. Such negligence of responsibility as a result of one’s career can have untold implications. Such implications may result in broken homes, lack of attention to loved ones, negligence of family responsibility, and lack of attention towards dependent like children. Such negligence could have far-reaching implications, especially for children who were ignored by parents as a result of their jobs.
In some cases, it may be difficult to really strike a balance in work life scenario but trying is what matters most.
10 Tips on How to Maintain a Work Life Balance:
| Tips | Tasks to Maintain a Work Life Balance | Tip's Aim and Objective |
|---|---|---|
| Tip 1 | Reassess your values | To helps identify and attend to priorities |
| Tip 2 | Reevaluate your time | To help achieve more with lesser time |
| Tip 3 | Reassure those that matter | To improve both work and home relationships |
| Tip 4 | Pay attention to yourself | To sustain good health of mind and body |
| Tip 5 | Seek direction and support | To avoid burnout and stagnation |
| Tip 6 | Share values and delegate responsibilities | To share in reasons for your values and commitment |
| Tip 7 | Make sacrifices | In order not to lose focus on the bigger goals |
| Tip 8 | Redesign your happiness to reflect in others | To provide presence even in absence |
| Tip 9 | Enhance your skills | To achieve better results at a faster pace |
| Tip 10 | Reassess your income and expenditure | To help maintain the quality of life |
Let us now discuss these 10 ideas on how to maintain a work life balance in details.
- Reassess your values
- Reevaluate your time
- Reassure those that matter
- Pay attention to yourself
- Seek direction and support
- Share values and delegate responsibilities
- Make sacrifices
- Redesign your happiness to reflect in others
- Enhance your skills
- Reassess your income and expenditure
• Reassess Your Values:
Your top value should get more of your attention, more of your time, and more of other resources. When time, attention, and resources are accurately deployed things that are not of great value will struggle from lack of attention from you, and those other things may naturally give way. Be careful when reassessing your values so as not to wrongly declare crucial things as less valuable.
• Reevaluate Your Time:
Because time seems free, several people may spend it doing things they won’t be doing if they have to pay money to do such things, the rule of thumb is, don’t do anything with your time that you won’t do with your money. So if there’s someone you talk to at work, if you need to pay to have such an individual talk to you, would you rather pay or avoid talking to them? The best way to evaluate time is to equate it to another value system.
• Reassure those that Matter:
• Pay attention to yourself:
A disorganized individual has a disorganized life. Taking charge of your life is the first step if you want to attain a balance.
Seek Direction and Support:
This made the biggest impact for me. In several cases I have asked my mum, do you think I should quit my research because it is taking a lot of time off me; I spend less time with her. Her answer was, “You know why you started and I think you don’t have to give up”, chances are that those you care about also care about you in return. They are going to offer words of encouragement when they realize that as much as they desire to spend time with you desire them as well.
In your case, it might be your spouse, children, or friends, communicate with whoever it is that you know you should be paying more attention to. Humans are naturally considerate. Even little children will understand when you work hard to survive, often you will see such children and even adults being more supportive when you seek their direction, they share in your feelings and that will bring a sense of concern to both sides.
Share values and delegate responsibilities:
Often it can even be a mixture of pay and passion, whatever the case you need to be open about your challenges, and your feelings about the job.
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Everyone in life has something unique they can add to your life. If they understand why this job matters to you, it becomes a shared objective. They are going to show up for you in times of difficulty and need.
When you find how to maintain a work life balance both work and your life become easier because when you impact others positively the impact will reflect on you.
Make sacrifices:
Thinking about how to attain work life balance? You need to get out of the way and be there for another. Make other people’s lives and passions count. As much as you value your life and work and aspire to strike a balance, understand that other people have a life too.
For instance, there was a Friday I had planned to do my laundry. My brother had an important appointment and my nephew was having a kindergarten graduation, I happened to be the only available adult, so I had to reschedule my laundry and be there for my little nephew, he’s too tender to reward me but that was one of the most beautiful things I could do, reflecting on that later, I felt satisfied.
I approach my work with more enthusiasm after doing something worthwhile for others who may not even be in a position to reward me.
Redesign your happiness to reflect others:
You can re-engineer yourself such that what gave you happiness earlier will no longer give you happiness. Even though such re-engineering may require a certain level of sophistication, it is very possible and crucial on how to maintain a work life balance for a long time.
To redesign your happiness, you need to find the happiness of those who matter to you and try to figure out if such will be able to make you happy. In several cases, the difference may be irreconcilable but in situations where it works, you will find bliss. Happiness redesign may start as a sacrifice but in the end, it may work out an entirely different passion.
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For instance, I’m not a big fan of bodybuilding, but a couple of my good friends love visiting the gym. It wasn’t my thing but I had to visit with my friends in my spare time, after a while of visiting I began to notice interesting things that made me interested in going more often.
It interests me that there’s a strong determination in the gym house. They try to lift heavy weights today, they fail, and they keep trying. I became a fan of wanting to watch their progress, the experience was thrilling and remains so, it has inspired some of my writings ever since.
Now I see a new member of the gym struggling to lift a heavy weight, I know it is a matter of time. Re-engineering your happiness doesn’t mean doing exactly what those you wish to share in their happiness are doing but finding your happiness in between.
Enhance Your Skills:
Human management skills are also very important, as much as you need to become more effective in your work; you need to also improve your self-management skills. At the same time, you need to understand how to manage others and even the environment to manifest your values.
Reassess your income and expenditure:
Being financial savvy is important to maintaining a stable life. Work balance itself is just another approach to life stability, financial stability is vital to life balance. Pursuing life work stability? Good financial management can leave you with extra funds that can enable you to afford that weekend trip to your favorite park; it can afford you an extra hand if you think you need support. This is another good idea on how to maintain a work life balance.
Financial freedom is very important; reassessing your income and expenditure will be crucial to attaining not just a balance in work and living but also general life success. A good use of money can afford one a quality life.
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Since we are discussing how to maintain a work life balance, it means we are focusing on a healthy work life. When it comes to the part where we pay attention to financial freedom, one needs to be more careful when making life choices as a successful individual. Not everything that money can buy is good for you.
As much as money can buy you a companion, there’s no guarantee that such a companion will turn a good company.
Conclusion
Maintaining a healthy work life is the ideal dream of nearly all adults. Answering the question: how do I navigate my work and my personal life is a very crucial question every adult will have to answer at some point in their life.
Attaining such balance is very possible, applying the simple steps we have outlined will go a long way. While at that, remember that every unique situation requires a unique approach. Always research within you and around you, chances are that you can find the answers to most of your questions within or around you.
It is important that as you strive to maintain a healthy work life, also endeavor to be more meticulous at examining your choices, actions, and inactions. Being responsible for your life is the most important step of a fulfilling life for an adult.