Ideas for finding work-life balance
Work and the rest of your life have at least one common factor: both will take every waking moment of your day if you let it. While you may happily give just that to one or both if you could, you need both for a myriad of reasons. So, it’s time to find ways to give the proper time and attention to each.
Plan your downtime
Give yourself a carrot. Plan a fun night out at least once a week that you just can’t miss. Ice cream sundae bar with the kids. A movie with your spouse. Drinks with a friend. Whatever you’d kick yourself for missing. Then, when you find yourself slowing down, think of that one thing and how you don’t want to have to cancel because you’re playing catch-up somewhere else.
Budget your time
To find more time for work or the rest of your life, treat your schedule like a checkbook near zero. Your time is your deposit, and what you do with it are your withdraws. Where can you cut? Maybe you stop walking by the co-worker who always grabs you to gossip or complain. Perhaps you think about removing the social media apps from your phone. Ask your kids if there are any activities they wouldn’t mind dropping at the end of the season. Bottom line: remove all activities that don’t provide value and growth.
Rethink your responsibilities
Here’s a secret: you’re not the only one of your friends looking for help finding this balance. You’re not even the only one on your block. Get a group of your favorite people together to discuss your favorite chores. Then swap duties. Have the crazy person who loves to clean stop by and spruce up your living room and bathrooms while you’re busy happily cooking up extra helpings of a few of your favorite recipes that friend can take home and freeze for the following week’s meals. And maybe the couple down the street who loves to have all the neighborhood kids at their house anyhow could turn in babysitting time for an hour of mowing every Saturday morning. All of the sudden, you all find a couple hours to spare each week, and you’re a little happier to boot.
Savor your downtime
When you find downtime, treasure its purity. This may sound sappy, but you must get the most out of it as possible, so unplug. Refuse to let emails, meeting requests or any other outside influences penetrate it. Leave the cell phone and tablet at home. If you must take them, give them to your spouse or your friend with explicit instructions to only give them to you when it’s absolutely necessary. Approving a project, accepting a meeting, reading status updates: they’re all things that can wait. When you receive these moments of work-life balance, hold onto them like the gold they are. You’ll be happy you did later when work and life are coming at you at the same time once again.