It can be difficult to find the ideal work-life balance for your situation. Often, you’ll find yourself unable to turn off the work side of your brain and enjoy the other parts of your life. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 established the 40 hour workweek, which most industries use. So, while there might be occasional exceptions, you should only be focused on work for a portion of your time. Doing too much work can be bad for your physical and mental health. If you struggle to establish a better work-life balance, here are four tips to help you fix it.
Stick to a Schedule
Many people thrive on a solid routine. It gives them structure and stability. A routine is also a great way to improve your work-life balance. By making other parts of your life part of your routine, they’ll be just as important to you as your work. Take some time to consider all of your needs. Then build a schedule that fits all of them in. It isn’t possible to have a healthy schedule all the time, but staying on schedule as much as possible will normalize turning off your work mode and moving on to other things. If you know when you’re working and when you aren’t, you’ll be able to see when it’s time to be done for the day.
Establish Boundaries
Just because you’re focusing on improving your work-life balance does not mean that your coworkers are. Sometimes you’ll be doing other things while they want to do work tasks. Or you might be trying to get your work done during its scheduled time and have to deal with interruptions. Researchers studying IT workers and accountants at the University of California Irvine saw that people switched their focus between assignments every 10.5 minutes. They were also interrupted during more than half of those 10.5 minute segments. If you don’t want to deal with interruptions and attempts to spread work into your home life, you need to establish boundaries. Be friendly, but firm. Eventually, people will respect them.
Schedule Your Breaks
If you’re working hard, you might not remember to take a break. The best way to ensure that you care for your health with a break is by scheduling it into your calendar. You can do this for both long and short breaks. Set your vacation in advance to ensure you actually take it. On days when you’re working, make sure you add your breaks to your tasks for the day. This will keep them in front of you so that you don’t forget.
Don’t Check Your Email Before Bed
While this might seem obvious, many people are tempted to take one last peek at their email before they go to bed at night. This can be bad for your health. Not only can looking at your phone disrupt your sleep, you risk seeing urgent work matters in your email. While they could wait for tomorrow, it is easy to give into temptation and get up to fix them. If you don’t, the stress might still impact the quality of sleep you get. Leave work for the daylight and get some sleep.
If you don’t establish a healthy work-life balance, it can have a negative impact on your health. However, achieving this goal can be difficult. Use these four tips to get started on setting a better work-life balance for yourself. You’ll find that not only are you more rested and satisfied with your life, but your productivity at work will also improve. This is one of the many benefits of a good work-life balance.
