How Taking Time For You Can Make For A Better Work-Life Balance
It’s easy to get caught up in your work life, allowing it to flood and overlap into your personal one. You may think mixing work into your time at home or on off days helps create a more productive workflow, but in reality, it is doing more harm than good. Busy professionals need to realize the importance of a good work-life balance and incorporate strategies to help keep them separate.
What Do We Mean By “Time For You”?
When you set aside time for yourself that means focusing all your attention on you and allow that time to include activities benefiting yourself that don’t pertain to work. This is the time for relaxing with family or friends and tending to your personal needs alone. During this time you should avoid anything related to business and/or work; you are officially clocked out.
When you focus most your time on work, relationships can become neglected as well as your own personal time. When this occurs, it can cause additional stress that bleeds into your work schedule; so if you want a healthy work life you need a healthy personal one. Keeping a good work-life balance means that you keep boundaries between the two and treat them both with equal importance. You can’t continue to perform well if you are tired, stressed, and overwhelmed.
What’s more important than work? You are.
How To Make Time For Yourself
Time is your most valuable asset and allotting enough for your personal needs is crucial. On your days off don’t always overload yourself with activities with friends, or run errands. It may be tempting to squeeze in as much doing and seeing as possible, but it can sometimes be counterproductive for your health.
Overstretching yourself creates stress and makes your day tiring when you should be resting and taking it easy from a busy schedule you are used to during the work week.
Planning activities on the weekends or off days is highly encouraged, but don’t accept every invitation to attend events and functions, and don’t feel obligated to do everything other people want you to take part in.
This goes for both family and friends. Sometimes it’s okay to say no and do things alone creating that ‘me time’ you deserve. Doing so will give yourself that mental break from everything that comes with working; communicating, social atmospheres, schedules etc.
Allow yourself adequate time to rest and relax in order to recharge for work. We know the early bird gets the worm, but if you want to sleep in on the weekend, then sleep in; this is your body telling you it needs a lot of rest from the busy days it previously had.
Catch up on your favorite shows or take time to work in the garden. Do things you enjoy and even if that consists of napping on the couch midday or reading. It is also important to understand that you don’t have to schedule every moment of your off days. Leave blocks of time free to be used spontaneously if you feel like going to the spa or on a shopping spree!
Finally, don’t forget to treat yourself to something you enjoy from time to time. Taking care of pressing matters continuously can make you forget to do something nice for yourself. Perhaps you would like to buy something you had your eye on for a while, get your hair cut or even get a massage.
Value yourself and don’t forget to allow an occasional indulgence to help keep your spirits up and reward yourself for all of your hard work. You deserve nothing less!
A healthy work-life balance is one key to staying productive and feeling your best at all times. The most successful professionals recognize this and strive to allow time for both in equal measures. Incorporating these ideas will help prevent burnouts and will minimize unnecessary stress in both your personal and professional life.
Related articles you might also like:
Stop thinking these things to become more successful
How to establish time management in the work place
