Work-Life Balance
For many, there is essentially no limit to potential work-related tasks. Once the important and urgent tasks are completed, there are reports to read or write, new developments in the field to learn, new software programs to consider, paperwork to complete, contacts to develop, and so on, ad infinitum (Latin for “to infinity,” which for some may not be an exaggeration).
One could churn through the work “to-do” list and never get around to the important non-work areas (i.e., the rest of your life). With the sense of obligation to complete this report, reply to that email, finish one more task, more valued but less urgent personal activities (time with family and friends, having fun) can be delayed and deferred, again and again. The very apt phrase “tyranny of the urgent” conveys the experience of feeling compelled to complete that next work task, even when other areas of life may be more important, but feel less urgent right now.
Developing a healthy work-life balance can be a difficult task—indeed, some may find themselves distressed by the sense of guilt that they are failing at balance, adding to stress from being busy at work. It can then become easy to feel pulled in opposite directions—trying to perform successfully at work, but also trying to devote quality time to family, friends, or valued activities.
WL Balance
Below are some guidelines for trying to manage this balance in a way that works best for you and those you care about.
Consider Your Values and Priorities
Take a few minutes to write out what matters most to you in life. Consider job performance, income, and retirement goals, but also important relationships, hobbies, volunteer activities, and travel or personal accomplishments you would like to achieve. Once written down, it becomes easier to determine which are top priorities (for example, deepening and strengthening your relationship with your family), and which are much less important (e.g., running a marathon). Ranking these priorities will help you determine in advance how to schedule the limited amount of time you have to spend.
This review can also help you to decide what percentage of your life you want to devote to working. If you reach a decision that 40 hours per week is all that you are willing to spend on your job, this allows you to set fairly clear boundaries in advance. On the other hand, in the middle of a busy day, with unexpected requests and fires to put out, it can be easy to be pulled into working late, taking home work projects, or promising to work over the weekend. If you decide in advance that this is not for you, and that your thoughtfully established priorities dictate that you safeguard time for your personal life, you may benefit from some of the following strategies for preserving and protecting that personal time. Of course, these principles hold even if you decide that 60 hours per week of work is fine for you, but you would still like to ensure that you have some quality of life outside of the workplace.
Set Bright-Line Boundaries
Try to mindfully and intentionally set boundaries around work. Because work tasks will expand to fill all available time, deliberately placing a limit, either by setting a time to stop or identifying a “last task for the day”, provides a signal that you should wrap up and then transition to other activities (time with family, friends, exercise, hobbies).
In the absence of a deliberately set signal to stop work, the opportunity for just one more email, just one more work call, can allow work to insidiously crowd out other activities that were intended for the day. And without these deliberate, intentional signals to stop work, time with kids, partners, friends, or hobbies, can be crowded out day after day, week after week, until the opportunities have disappeared.
Exceptions to these boundaries occur when inherent job demands necessitate that one be flexible and accommodating with scheduling. This is a commonplace issue within public safety jobs, for example, which require employees to work nights, weekends, and holidays in addition to overtime and to be available for callouts in response to key events and critical incidents. Over time, these sacrifices can take a toll if not counterbalanced with a healthy lifestyle outside of work.
Use Time-Management Strategies
Being efficient with your time while at work will reduce the amount of extra work that may remain when it is time to transition to personal life. There are numerous time-management strategies available and approaches for aligning your time management with your goals.
Use Technology
Setting smartphone timers or alerts can be a simple but effective way of prompting you to start or stop tasks at appropriate times. If you know in advance that you can only allow yourself a certain amount of time for an open-ended task, such as gathering information, this technique can keep time from slipping away from you when other time-sensitive tasks need your attention.
It can also be easy for personal life to interfere with work performance—personal calls and emails, browsing social media, making non-work plans while at the office, all of which can stretch out indefinitely in the absence of a limiting signal. Timers and alerts can also help you limit the amount of time that you spend on personal business while at work (e.g., searching for a gift online, sending personal emails). Similarly, if you must complete work at home but want to maintain personal time, setting the timing can give you a clear signal when you’ve spent the time that you allotted, and provides a non-verbal instruction that it is time to pivot to personal matters.
Ask Your Family to Help
While nagging or criticism are counterproductive, it may be useful to ask your partner, children, or friends to help you set priorities and help you to be accountable for setting and honoring time commitments with them. This could include weekly date nights with a partner, monthly events with friends, trips to the park with children, and so on. Planning events that are fun for all, and having others ensure that you honor these commitments, can reduce the likelihood of letting work tasks bleed into evenings and weekends and crowd out your personal life and personal relationships.
Use Your Calendar
Although a simple and obvious tool, the daily calendar highlights the limited time available each day. Filling in the calendar after spending some time considering your values and priorities can ensure that the important people and activities in your life don’t go overlooked. Be sure to allocate clearly defined spans of time for relationships and activities, and be deliberate and intentional in honoring these commitments.
Enlist Your Employer
Employers are motivated to retain valued employees, and employees are more productive when they are not stressed by barriers to attending to personal and family matters due to work constraints. Depending on the nature of the job, some employers are willing to help find solutions such as working from home, flexible start-end times, or staggered work schedules, among others. In cases where several team members are stretched thin with excessive tasks, it may be helpful to approach management about hiring a shared assistant to take care of simpler tasks to free up time for more productive work.
Track Your Time
Try to record how much time you are spending in work and personal activities; if work starts to creep into non-work life, take steps to ensure that you are establishing clear boundaries. Conversely, if home life tasks are intruding at work, this can reduce your effectiveness during your time at work, extending the amount of time needed to complete work tasks.
Review
Daily
Create a list on which you score yourself each day, rating how well you did at such tasks as completing work efficiently, honoring your time commitments with family or friends, setting aside time for fitness, and so on. If you rate how much you tried to accomplish each task, you can give yourself credit even if you did not fully succeed, and you can plan for how you will be more successful the next day.
Monthly
Set future dates in your calendar to review how successfully you are maintaining work-life balance, and adjust as needed.
Be Nice to Yourself
If you are already stressed about work-life balance, it would be unhelpful to criticize yourself further if you don’t perfectly maintain work-life balance every week. Give yourself permission to stretch outside your plan at times. If this becomes recurrent, it may be worth revisiting your values and priorities, and considering whether to modify them, or try out some of the other strategies for managing work-life balance.
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