Life-work balance. What's your sweet spot?

What does life-work balance mean?

It’s simple. Exactly what it says. Life comes before work. This has sprung to the front of our minds as many of us reflect on life choices as we steer further away from the pandemic. Life-work or work-life balance is an important aspect of a healthy work environment. As humans, maintaining a life-work balance helps reduce stress and helps prevent burnout.

For us to feel energised, bold, do our best and thrive at work, we must appreciate the importance of protecting our time to enable a good life-work balance.

Without a good balance, how will we ever achieve sustainable high performance in work and fulfilment outside of work?!

What does it take to get a life-work balance?

Have courage – we’re human, not perfect and may not always get it right but we’re willing to try. And keep trying. You can do it.

Be bold – protect the non-negotiables in your weekly routine. Those gems that really support your wellbeing.

Simplify – it doesn’t need to be complicated, keep making little changes, build those changes in your routine then add more. One step at a time.

Too many barriers – break through them. You need to. Not maintaining a good life-work balance is simply not sustainable.

Trust – deliver on a promise to yourself. Promise to be mindful of actions you make that have a negative impact on your wellbeing.

Does life-work balance mean not performing as well at work? 

Absolutely not. It’s about working smarter, not harder.  If you can find your life-work balance sweet spot, you should perform better at work as you’ll feel more recharged, more fuelled and energised to deliver when you are at work.

What little changes can we build into our routine?

Protect your time. Those of us who have control over our own diary, control over which meetings we go to or host, don’t forget the importance of having white space in your calendar to get stuff done. A dairy full of meetings, allows no action time. This means work is more likely to flow into your 'life' time, impacting your life-work balance.

Meetings. Do they really need to be scheduled for 30 minutes or 60 minutes long? Can we shave 5 / 10 / 15+ minutes off each meeting to allow us more time? More breathing space.

Hybrid Working & Flexible Working Hours.  I have this on my Microsoft Teams status and on my emails. “My working hours are variable so whilst it suits me to message now, I do not expect a response or action outside of your own working hours.” This is to discourage colleagues from responding outside of their own working hours.

Have your non-negotiable. The things that help your wellbeing whether that be your physical, mental or social wellbeing. It could be that you always go for a run at lunchtime, you drink your coffee outside or away from your desk, you read a book at lunchtime or, listen to a podcast, go for a walk with friends, you go to a yoga class every Monday evening or even get home on time to have dinner with your family. These things support your wellbeing as they allow time for your to switch off, unwind, recharge. They are an important part of your life-work balance.

What does having a good life-work balance mean to those around you?

Don’t underestimate how much people watch you. Observing your behaviour. Mirroring your approach. This could be your children, your siblings, if you’re a manager then your team, your co-workers from your team and extended teams, those you mentor, and those who look up to you as a role-model. If you would encourage them to get the balance right, think about how important it is to do what you tell others to do.

Rule 1. Put your own oxygen mask on first. Others will follow and you’ll be in a good place to help them. You can’t expect to help others if you haven’t first helped yourself.

For any of us to be effective in our jobs and lives, we must take care of ourselves.

 Be courageous. Be bold. Take control of your life-work balance. One step at a time.

You can do it.

#Wellbeing #FutureWorkplace #LifeWorkBalance #WorkLifeBalance