Work-Life Balance: What Can You Do?

Work-Life Balance: What Can You Do?

Work-life is a huge topic across all industries but is especially important in the retail and hospitality industries (visit website for more details on opportunities in these two sectors). Here, working hours can be long and thus make it harder for one to be actively engaged outside the workplace.

There are ways you can make changes to your current work routine that enhance work-life balance. Nevertheless, it’s always ideal that you think about how your pursuits outside work will coexist with your workplace responsibilities before you apply for or accept a new job. Either way, work-life balance is primarily dependent on what you do and not just what your employer allows you to.

Here are some valuable tips on realizing work-life balance.

1.    Determine Your Values and Priorities

Spend some time thinking about the things that you consider most important in your life. For some, that would be spending time with their partner and/or children. For others, it would be championing a social cause.

Define and write down your life priorities, passions and values. What do you enjoy doing? What makes you tick? What are your short-, medium- and long-term career goals? If you come up with 10 key life priorities, in what order would you place them from first to last?

Defining your values and priorities lays the foundation for every other action leading to work-life balance.

2.    Track Your Time Then Organize and Manage It

If you feel your work is pushing you to the wall and making it hard to do anything else, it just could be that you are not making optimal use of your time. Look hard enough and you may just find that you may be losing minutes and hours every day that could otherwise be devoted to more productive pursuits.

Start by meticulously tracking your activities every day for a week or two. Identify areas of wastage and develop strategies to cut these out. This could, for instance, mean shopping online, avoiding non-essential meetings or reducing commute time. Leverage the power of diaries, calendars, to-do lists, and productivity apps to better organize your time.

3.    Set Boundaries

Everyone would love to be a model employee. In their effort to realize this goal, many workers will put in a large number of hours at work. They’ll also be on call at odd hours on short notice. The objective here is usually to show such commitment that they become a prime candidate for future promotions and pay rises. Spending a large number of hours at work could also be motivated by a quest to shore up income by earning overtime.

Whatever the reason, this is detrimental to your work-life balance. Set limits on the time you spend at work and stick to the time you have allotted to other aspects of life. Switch off your phone, stay away from work emails, disconnect from the Internet and, as much as possible and permissible, learn to say no when called to work on short notice.

4.    Set Realistic Financial Goals

As mentioned in the previous point, spending too many hours on work is often driven by a financial objective. That could be short-term in the form of overtime earned or more long-term in the shape of a job promotion or a higher remuneration.

Getting a new car or buying a new house are excellent financial goals. Nevertheless, you should consider whether the time you have set for their realization is doing you more harm than good. More money certainly means more freedom and choice. Still, you can be happy and fulfilled while living in a less expensive home or driving a cheaper car.

Nurturing positive relationships, developing strong support systems, adopting a regular exercise routine and taking a vacation can lead to a fuller life even if you don’t have a high income.

 The more you can achieve the right balance between work, home and play, the happier, more motivated and more productive you’ll be as an employee. Incorporate these tips in your everyday activities and you’ll be well on your way to leading a life of true satisfaction.

**** Written for Meridian Counseling by Ashley Lipman. Ashley is an award-winning writer who discovered her passion for providing knowledge to readers worldwide on topics closest to her heart - all things digital. Since her first high school award in Creative Writing, she continues to deliver awesome content through various niches touching the digital sphere.