Balancing your personal and professional life can be really tough. There are countless reports on the web that indicate how achieving a work-life balance has become even more difficult during these post-COVID-19 times.
Less personal time, more pressure to succeed and get tasks done fast, working remotely and longer working hours. All these combined create plenty of daily struggles and stress.
However, the harder and longer you work does not mean you get more time to spend with family and friends or engage in activities you enjoy doing.
What is work-life balance and why is it important?
The idea of work-life balance is more than just taking time off work to spend time with family or friends or hit your weekly yoga class. It is a state of equilibrium that allows you to prioritize equally the demands of your personal life and those of your career.
To better understand this concept, think about all facets of life that are significant to you such as family, work, hobbies, me-time, interests, friends, etc. If you’re compromising any of these things, you have not achieved work-life balance.
Work-life balance is an all-in approach towards all facets of life that provide you with a feeling of fulfillment and utmost satisfaction. It is important because it gives you a greater sense of well-being, lowers the risk of burnout, and minimizes stress.
In this article, we explore 6 tips you can implement to create a better work-life balance when living in Los Angeles.
Practice detoxing
Cut ties with your routine self from time to time to unplug and rejuvenate. Unplugging can be as simple as practicing meditation on your way to work instead of catching up on emails.
The best way to embrace your work life balance is to give yourself space for ideas and thoughts to merge and allow yourself to recover from weekly stress.
Taking time for yourself provides you with clarity on what’s most important, allowing you to stay energized, refreshed, and motivated. Ultimately, it means that you’re investing in yourself, thus creating more balance.
Create a dedicated workspace
In this era of social distancing, achieving a work-life balance can be quite challenging. Working remotely tends to mean difficulty keeping strict hours, distractions, and multitasking.
The current global pandemic has rapidly increased the percentage of employees working from home from the previous 20% to nearly 70%. Homes have become a place for school, leisure, work, working out, and meals.
Using the same space for multiple activities can make it hard for your brain to differentiate between leisure and work.
Establishing a dedicated space for work can help you embrace your work-life balance. This dedicated workspace can help you mentally separate work from personal time.
Not sure how you can set up a workspace that works for your space?
Work smarter, not harder
Focus your energy and time on achieving better results instead of thinking about working harder. Simplifying and streamlining your focus areas provides you with more time to live a more balanced and joyful life.
It’s very easy to fall into the trap of engaging in multiple activities that take up most of your time and hinder you from building momentum in progressing your life. This often leaves you worried, drained, and unbalanced.
Focus on a few projects and seek to deliver maximum results. You’ll have a greater sense of achievement, motivation and confidence. Besides, you’ll have more time to engage in other facets of life that are important.
Actively set boundaries
There is immense power in the word ‘no’ that most people are afraid to use. Outright rejection, especially towards your boss or co-worker can seem daunting. But in reality, it’s the simplest way to achieve a work-life balance.
Actively setting boundaries can help you decide where to spend your time, what relationships to build and what activities to engage in.
Your time is scarce. Have the courage, self-respect, and confidence to live the life that makes you happy and only accept the things that are really important.
Set clear goals
Having a poor work-life balance makes tasks feel very overwhelming. Luckily, setting clear goals can help you solve this issue.
Most successful people are guided by a vision to keep them motivated and on course. Setting measurable and specific goals allows you to achieve your dreams and move forward every single day. It provides you with a better chance of transforming how you live and work.
Start to journal
A journal is a place to house your dreams. It’s a home to creative thoughts that you can escape to when life seems a bit overwhelming.
Developing the habit of journaling can be transformative. It can help you declutter, adopt a more proactive life strategy, and learn to appreciate the here and now. This will improve your personal state of mind, thus helping you embrace work-life balance.
Conclusion
Creating a balance between how you spend your time, how you think, and how you work is crucial to your mental wellbeing and overall health. We hope that the above strategies will set you on the right path to embracing your work-life balance, starting from where you live.
