Finding the Balance

 

Work-life balance, a broad concept referring to the proper prioritizing between one’s career and other aspects of life (family, personal development, health) is perhaps the most important thing on the mind of the average career person as they try to allot the limited time they have to the various tasks and responsibilities that compete for their attention on a daily basis.

The premium on performance and the competitiveness of today’s work place has made it almost impossible for most people to maintain the healthy balance between career and life.

So, how does one find the balance?

There will never be a right time; you will have to create it.

Maintaining work-life balance starts with being proactive with your time. Proactively schedule your time so that you will be able to devote regular quality time to each aspect of your life, be it your health, spouse, children or even leisure. Leaving everything to chance is a total recipe for a disorganised life as your work demands can only get bigger (no ones prays for a demotion). Cut back on some demands that threaten your personal life – like working on weekends or prolonged business trips. Do away with time wasters like idle chatter, office gossips and other activities that drain your energy without adding value to you.

Lighten your schedule by delegating as much as you can. Create down time in your weekly schedule to accommodate other activities that help you relax and refresh.

Set your priorities

Defining your priorities is the main idea behind work-life balance.

First of all, you need to make a written list of all the things that are important in your life, and then arrange them in order of importance. This could range from higher academic pursuit to family, social life, recreation and health. Arrange these items on a numerical scale of one to ten, one being the most important. There are some items on your list whose allotted time will not be negotiable i.e. your job. The amount of time you would allot to your job is not negotiable because the work hours are usually fixed by employers. As a result, you would have to arrange every other activity on your priority list to fit in into the time you have left after work. For instance, things like leisure, doctor’s appointment, social calls and even academic study time will have to be crammed into your non working hours.

Knowing your priorities in life helps you to know where to focus most of your energy. If you fail in that one thing that tops your list, there is nothing else you can use to replace it. If you regard career success as the most important thing in your life for instance, success in the area of family will not fill the void in your life.

The big challenge here has to do with how to determine the amount of time to devote to each activity in order to live a healthy, balanced life. The answer lies in how much each of those activities mean to you as a person. For some, devoting all their free time to family gives them the ultimate satisfaction. For others, it could be golf or studies. Re-examining your priorities will let you know where to focus your energy in order to find the right balance in life.

Draw the boundaries

Finding the balance between work and life takes a lot of creativity and determination. It is very important that you clearly define the boundaries between your work and other areas of your life. Having clearly defined boundaries will let you have control over what happens where and when. You might have to clearly draw out a schedule and differentiate between work-time, family time, relaxation time and so on. You will be doing yourself a big disfavour if you allow yourself to be pulled in different directions as you might not be able to give your best.  On the other hand, success in one area alone will not make you a complete person. Therefore you have to find a way to juggle professionalism with parenthood as well as your social life and health without one encroaching on the other.

 Revisit your Mission statement

Perhaps, taking another look at your long lost Personal Mission Statement will bring you back to the reality of the life you are currently living. The reason why it is often advised that personal mission statements be regularly revisited is that it is possible for your mission statement to become obsolete as a result of environmental and circumstantial changes. If your mission statement was written years ago, it is possible that some of its elements are no longer in conformity with the times. Things have changed; you have evolved, hence, the need to rework the elements in order to accommodate your present state.

Your mission statement will let you know what your biggest priorities are. It will help you to focus on your life goal so that you do not get carried away with your ever growing work responsibilities.

A person who dedicates all his energy to work while neglecting other aspects of his life can only go on for a while. Virtually every aspects of life: health, intellectual development, family and even career needs to be nurtured on a regular basis. Failure to do this will leave one drained and empty, eventually void of those qualities needed to perform well in one's career.