A guide for keeping personal and professional lives separate
On an average, career workers spend around 60 hours at their jobs every week. Employer perpetually appear to want maximum out of their employees, who are hard pressed for time for personal relaxation, social commitments, family time and profession. Here are some tips to help work and personal life in a better way.
Get focused
Work on your tasks, one at a time, until you can finish them. Do not let yourself be distracted by email or co-workers. Also, when you work, do not try to be perfect each time. Allow yourself some time for each specific job and try to complete the task within that period only. Let go of perfectionism. Once you have completed the main part of your work, you can revise it later. It is a nice way to get more focused.
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Keep work and personal life separate
Once you are done with your activities at the workplace, forget them and come back home with a free mind. It is never good to bring work home or take personal arguments and distractions to the workplace. Try to keep your personal and professional life as separate as possible. While that might appear to be easier said than done, when you divide your time and prioritize your activities of the day, you can maintain your sanity and be able to have a more content life.
Save time for personal and social life
Try to save the weekends for family and friends. Your time during the weekends need to be reserved only for loved ones, so that you can spend some quality time with them, enjoy leisure activities or play games.
Even on weekdays, try to finish your tasks at work as early as possible. Avoid procrastination and work fast, taking a few minutes every now and then from work to take some rest – such as finding some ‘me time’, or chatting with loved ones on the phone etc. Studies have shown that taking short breaks in the middle of the day from work can improve productivity in a dramatic way.
Manage your relationships
When you spend time together with your family and friends, you can enjoy better communication with them and be able to avoid problems that crop up due to miscommunication. You can understand your loved ones more, especially the children, and find out about their wants and needs. Relax with them and open up about your future plans for them.
Relationships are more important than anything else in life. As you spend quality time with dear ones, you can reduce workplace stress, clear your mind and re-energize yourself enough to notice an improvement in your office performance.
Avoid overworking
With excessive working, you are only going to burn out yourself and ultimately be compelled to take rest when your mind and body can take no more. You will not have any energy left for the everyday activities that you really enjoy. By devoting most of your time of the day to work, you will tire out yourself and not be able to give your best to your loved ones who need your presence badly in their lives. Thus, you need to avoid working too much if you wish to have a proper balance between your life and work.
Maintain an organizer
It is essential that you form a habit of using a calendar to prioritize your commitments and goals, so as to complete all your activities in a very organized manner. When you write down about all your commitments and goals into a hard copy, you can refer back to the same and achieve those tasks. With the simple activity of writing down those objectives, you can make to yourself a formal commitment about finish all those tasks that are necessary to attain those objectives. You can also hold yourself accountable in turn and increase the chances of success.
Set a plan and commit
You need to manage your time effectively to bring to fruition all the things that you plan. Choose your goals with care and practicality, and pick a time frame within which you would like to achieve those objectives. Commit to each plan that you make.
You can download one of those task manager apps that have been created to help smartphone users. These can be carried about easily in pockets, and used to add, edit or delete activities at any point of time. Once you do this, a better work-life balance can be achieved.
Learn to Say ‘No’
If you have been lately finding it tougher to be on top of everything, it could be because you have bitten off more than you can chew. This could be because you have been trying to satisfy the requests of everyone around you, leaving you with little time, burnt out and dissatisfied. Do not nod to every request that come in your way. Before you take any more work, double-check your existing schedule. If you cannot fit more work easily into your life, do not be hesitant to refuse.
A simple ‘no’ can work wonders for your sanity and life. Do not let others take your time that you would use better for recovery and reflection.
Enjoy ‘Me-Time’
Every day, it is a good idea to have at least an hour when you can sit quietly without any distractions and focus only on those thoughts and activities that you enjoy. Give yourself the freedom to choose those tasks that you love – such as watching TV, going for a walk in the park, listening to music or simply hanging out with a friend.
Conduct a Weekly Review
Finally, it is important that you make a review every weekend of how well you are doing. Ask yourself whether you are happy and satisfied with your life.
This review could be written, or even conducted mentally. Check what is working out for you and what is not. Drop all those things that do not seem to be working. Focus only on the tasks that are working well for you in achieving a good work-life harmony.
