10 Keys to Work & Life Balance

Are you the kind that email, text messaging, cell phones, and Blackberries keep you tethered to the office even when you are technically “off-duty”? How can you keep up with your always-on career and still find time to do what you need to do at home, spend time with your family, enjoy some kind of social life, and just plain relax? At risk are your personal relationships, your development as a person, your sanity, and even your life.

Stress kills. Even Server need downtime & so do you to help your mind and body cope with the demands of your job. Balancing work with life is important as it remove the stress in it. But how?

1. Attitude is everything.
No matter how much you love your job, no matter how big a part of your life it is, ultimately you need to be able to “turn it off” and spend some time not working. This is hard for a lot of people, because their work is an important part of who they are as people. This can be admirable, especially when you accomplish great things in your work, but an always-on-the-job attitude can be harmful in the long run. At the least, the people around you will get tired of coming in second to your work, causing damage to your relationships and eventually leaving you without them. What’s more, it might even reduce your effectiveness in your work, both the mind and body need a break from thinking about and doing the same things all the time to recharge and keep coming up with fresh ideas.

2. Keep a rational schedule.
The more you’re trying to juggle, the more important it is to make a good schedule and keep to it. Block out all your work and non-work commitments and make sure to allow plenty of downtime and non-work time. Treat non-work commitments as seriously as you treat working commitments. The time you’ve assigned to family, housework, and your own activities needs to be just as inviolable as the time you spend in the office, going to meetings, or meeting deadlines. This is especially true if you’re so busy that you can’t reschedule that off-work time.

3. Learn to say “No.”
If you’re having trouble keeping on top of everything going on in your life, it may be that you’ve committed more time than you have. Make a point of seriously considering any request that comes your way, and double check your schedule before taking anything else on. When it’s too much, don’t be afraid to refuse. You won’t be doing anyone any good by taking on tasks that you won’t be able to do well because you’re too overwhelmed to handle them, or by accepting social invitations that you’re too stressed out to enjoy.

4. Enjoy list-free time.
Stopped making lists of things to do in your off-time because the stress that not finishing the list will stress your weekends. Drop the list for a day or two, and take things as they come. This is really about attitude, drawing a clear line between your work-life and the rest of your life.

5. Keep it organized.
There’s nothing worse than finding yourself faced with overtime or extra working days because you didn’t get enough done at work. So keep yourself organized. For example, having as little out as possible; give away what you don’t usually use; going paperless; & always use grouping.

6. Batch it.
Batching tasks can be a great way to get more done in less time, whether it’s handling your work email or your mail at home. You’ll work faster and better because your mind is only on one thing, and when it’s done, you can forget about it, so worrying about that bill you have to pay or that email you should respond to doesn’t “spill over” into the rest of your day. You know that your bill will get paid during your normal bill-paying time, and your email got responded to when you processed your email.

7. Clear your mind.
The key point here is to do whatever it takes to confine all the things you’d be liable to worry about to a trusted system where you know they’ll get taken care of, so that relaxation time doesn’t feel like more of the daily grind & you can spend the rest of your time without worrying.

8. Get it wrong the first time.
Set yourself an amount of time to complete a job. Let go of your perfectionism and just do as well as you can in the set time. No matter how poorly its done, its completed. You may want to perfect it later, but at least the “heavy lifting” is already done. Obviously, this isn’t going to apply in every situation, but try whenever you can.

9. Keep the lines of communication open.
Let the people closest to you know what’s going on in your work life when things get hectic, so they don’t feel like your lowest priority or worse, suddenly abandoned. And keep your ears open to hear what they tell you, too. If your spouse or partner, your friends, or your kids start complaining, or tell you straight out that you’re working too much, listen to them. They’re generally going to be a better judge of your behavior than you are.

10. Be honest with yourself.
This is the hardest one, but also the most necessary. Part of your weekly task should be to ask yourself if you are happy with all this? And to follow up by looking at how well you’re doing of balancing everything. Be honest, this is your life. If you can’t face the hard questions, all the lifehacks and organizing won’t mean a thing, you’ll just slide away.