A Gentle Reminder to Maintain Work , Life Balance

Gentle Reminder to Maintain Work , Life Balance

Leading a balanced life is very important. Working too much, not just professionally, but even personally (for family), can be detrimental to you. Similarly, being lazy and ignoring responsibilities will make it even hard to achieve your goals. In the below article, you will learn how to balance your life and lead a healthy lifestyle.

You will learn all about how you can balance it, and why you should do it. It will help you find balance and a balanced diet in your life and have a
healthy work-life balance

It can be very overwhelming while becoming better as a person or becoming better in a specific interest. Balancing the new information, past experiences, and the rest of the things in your life can be very difficult. Balance is essential, and one should think about and maintain it while looking to live a fulfilling life. 

Life Balance

Being balanced will help you solve so many problems in lives!

You have to ask yourself one question "Am I really in balance, or do I need to re-assess what is happening with my life? Should I take a break, or should I push through?"

If you are trying to find the pathway to live a balanced life and think that you can find balance immediately in your life, it will be very tough. But, it can be done with correct guidance and a lot of patience. 

In the blog, you will learn how balance can be achieved in life with only a few easy steps. Please read the entire blog.

What does it mean to have balance in your life?

Usually, many people believe that it is impossible to balance life because there is not enough time and energy to plan the day. Sometimes, it might even feel impossible to balance everything that life throws at us.

For instance, a working young woman with two kids, a husband, a full-time job, and running a nonprofit on the side: apart from all the family wellness and professional responsibilities, she wants to maintain a social life like going out with friends, building new friendships, doing pilates or yoga, participating in a marathon, cooking meals, gardening, and taking time to relax on. But, in the end, it seems nearly impossible to balance everything. Balancing family, professional and personal life is very tough these days. 

Life Balance

However, for everybody out there trying to manage their personal and professional life together, the idea of balance only means "doing it all together" or "doing everything now."

Maintaining a work-life balance is constantly misunderstood and miscalculated as doing all things equally and giving equal weight to all things and aspirations. 

Usually, balance is defined as a means of judging or deciding, a counterbalancing force or act, having a steadiness both mentally and emotionally. 

Nevertheless, maintaining the balance doesn't come by doing equal parts of everything that you desire. Instead, you plan everything so that you have time to do everything a little, even the exhausted bit of yourself while doing all the stuff, and never doing anything for real, with commitment, zest, and intention.

Well, the truth is whether you are going to like it or not, you can't do everything that you desire, something will miss every time. If you disagree with it and think that you can do everything, the truth still stands out that you cannot do it all.

Living a balanced life and maintaining it means determining the most important thing you want to do is then spend your energy on it and do time management accordingly.

Our society always wants us to be busy and over-committed. The busyness of a person is celebrated and encouraged; it makes us worthy and vital in society. But to find that balance, we have to stop thinking that we will do everything we desire. It might disrupt your routine and possibly create more chaos in your life to complete everything you want. We have to decide what matters to us more and what deserves our time, energy, and money. 

How should you maintain balance in your life?

Life Balance

Maintaining a work/ life balance is very difficult, only if you are a sole trader staying alone. In that case, you will work from home, on your time and you have no one else to answer and attend, it is easy to switch off anytime you want. 

However, times have changed; even sole traders, freelancers, most importantly, working parents nowadays struggle to maintain a balance between work and their lives as the boundaries are now blurred. Below are some quick tips that will help you strike an equal balance between your work and other areas of your life:

Prioritize your Time

Timing

Start by making a to-do-list, whether it is only one task or 50, make list and prioritize the tasks into categories such as:

  • Urgent and important
  • Important but not urgent
  • Urgent but has time
  • Neither urgent nor important

Play to your Strength

Never try and be everything to all works. So, focus on your strengths and work with them; if you don't know anything and have only a mere idea, it will be a waste of time. 

Set aside Time

Have set work time: have strict work hours and plan your work accordingly, stick to your work hours, and let nothing disturb you at that time. Otherwise, you will either work until midnight or end up watching a whole series of your favorite web series.

Know your Technology

Technology

Technology is expanding as if it is the waves of the sea. Knowing the appropriate technology and utilizing it is the brightest thing anyone can do. It even keeps you in league with your competitors. Some latest technology that people use while doing WFH is Google chats, Microsoft teams, and Slack for connecting with your clients. Technologies such as Skype, Zoom, and Google Meet are helpful for video conferencing or video calls.

Settle your Finances

Finance

Keeping a check on your finances, whether you are doing a job or freelance, is essential to be confident about your financial status and savings. To manage your finances, you might need some accounting software and start using and checking your every day or every-time expenses. 

Controlling cash flow is one of the hardest things any business and employee can face. It would be best if you initially started using these tools or can manually maintain your finance. Keeping finances helps you to avoid over-expenses and instead behave as savings. 

Make a Functional Workspace

Since last year, we all have been doing work from home, and sometimes working in the same place such as our bed or couch can affect badly to our posture. By now, it is understood that the WFH is there to stay with us. In such situations, it is better to create a home office in the corner of the room. It helps to maintain concentration while working. 

You can set up a home office with minimal equipment such as a comfortable chair, ergonomic keyboard, and a support table or stand for your laptop, maybe a few plants or a fishbowl on the table, and a to-do list in front.

An ergonomic assessment of the home workspace is worth every cent!

Nurture your Network

Being a freelancer or sole trader, prioritizing your goals is vital for growing your network. Prepare a structured lead generation and conversion system. With this, you can easily track the work you are doing for the leads and increase your network on the other hand. 

Start with the trial and error method. Once you reach a point where you are getting the required conversion, note it for further leads. Always be ready to accept and come up with new lead-generation strategies. 

Be Realistic

At the end of every working day, do a little analysis of the work you did the whole day. Analyze what you did the entire day, what you worked on, what you didn't, what went wrong, how the issue can be fixed, and the priorities that you need to attend to first.

Remember that many businesses are out there just like you, learning the same or more lessons every day. Don't forget to keep yourself updated with the latest technologies in the market and try to grab as much valuable information as you can.

Take Intermediate Breaks

Remember to take sufficient breaks in between work throughout the day!

Taking time to breathe fresh in between work helps rejuvenate your mind and concentrate appropriately for your next work-related task. 

Sometimes, the tasks can be more manageable, and sometimes they can be tricky. These breaks will help you gain your spirits and give some relaxation to your mind. However, always be realistic about whether you can afford to rest or not. The deadlines can be too tight at times, and you might have to pull out an all-nighter for it.

You always might not have the time to sit and rest, but you can take 10-15 minutes of me-time from work whenever you have a little time. 

Also, make sure to get up and stretch yourself every 15-20 minutes. It will help your body and posture, and you will be more focused and productive. 

Go for a Holiday

Go on a Holiday

Make sure to take the holidays! At least once a year. 

Go to someplace that you always wanted to explore, eat their local cuisine, visit famous places, and enjoy yourself. You can either take a long holiday once a year or have a long weekend every three months. Do whatever suits your schedule.

But, don't forget to inform your clients and customers about your trip and unavailability in advance. Also, complete all the necessary tasks beforehand and make all the required arrangements for your clients and customers during your unavailability.

Best Balanced Diet to Maintain a Healthy Life

Balanced Diet

Let's get one thing out of the way. I could share the ratio of the time I give to work, family, friends, health, time, traveling, reading, and so on - but honestly, this ratio differs for each of us. Just like a balanced diet, life demands a little of some things and much more of a few other things to make a wholesome meal.

Hustle & Align

Familiar with the notion that if you're hustling and working hard, life's all good? Here's the truth. Success doesn't have to come hard, and it does not have to mean an all-time hustle. There's success in rehabilitation too. I realized the hard way that my balance implies the luxury of having time with myself, watching a movie, joining my dance class, and saying bye-bye to work after a particular hour.

Salads & Pizzas

They say eating salad in a lousy mood is much unhealthier than eating pizza in a good mood. If the Sunday cheat meal doesn't work for you, you're not alone. It's all about being mindful and knowing what your body really (reaaalllly) wants. For me, balance in nutrition means getting enough protein, carbs, food fats, and fiber. I have my big fat vegan burger or pasta probably thrice a week.

Building Habits

This one tops MY LIST. When I'm sliding toward the not-so-good days, these habits keep me going. For some people, it may be their early morning gym, a smoothie in the morning, a hot shower, or a good chat with loved ones; for me - it's my morning Auric drink, my bi-weekly dance class, and cooking every single day.

Being Organized

The most underrated habit ever. Now, this doesn't mean you need to know where your nail cutter or every single piece of the utensil is! It could mean having a journal, planner, or even an app you fill out every day, every week, or even every month. Not to be preachy, but it's a fast-paced life, and if we're in touch with ourselves or our goals, it makes it much more fun.

There's no right or wrong answer or a set guideline for achieving work-life balance, and finding the balance you enjoy makes all the difference.

Why is Balance Important in Life?

Balance Your Life

There is always one more task, one more work email, one more call, and one more issue to fix, and the list will go on and on. Often, all these things consume so much of your time that you won't realize, and you would have worked till midnight or even early morning. You will even be left with very little time to eat your meal and sleep. Then wake up the following day it is the same routine again. Most people get busy being so busy that they forget other important things and fail to maintain balance, affecting their mental health. People usually forget to step back, take a deep breath, meditate, take a long walk, or even smell beautiful flowers.

There is something magical when you stay away from all the craziness and listen to the silence, and have some peace for better well-being. This will help you get a better perspective, so you can make better decisions, gain calmness and positively gain the ability to see everything as a bigger picture. You will get the whole concept of where you stand, how everything is going, and how you should plan it further. Yes! Taking time off will help you with sorting out your stuff in a better way.

It is high time we all should understand the need for better work-life balance in our lives. We need to recognize and remember the importance of it. Set goals for yourself when you are willing to spend on the things you want to do, both personal and professional. Set the time like how much time you want to spend working, how much family time you want, and your time

Many of us are the worst at this part; however, sticking to it is harder, but it can be achieved with time management. We might get busy taking care of everyone and everything around us and forget about our own life. However, it can be achieved slowly and steadily. 

Make sure to take time and meditate every day for a few minutes to gain some peace with less stress and a low risk of burnout. It helps to clear the mind and sit in silence. Meditating somewhere beautiful and peaceful would serve the purpose; however, even a silent and quiet place also works. While meditating, make your mind think about all the beautiful things or the things that make you happy, the beauty around the world, be at peace, and think about it. Do it for maybe 10-15mins. Once you are done, get up, take a deep breath, and get back to your schedule. 

* The author of this blog is a famous digital media influencer who believes in inspiring people to lead better lives.*


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