If you feel that you do not have enough hours in the day and that you cannot give enough time to those things that are really important to you, then you need to stop and take a long hard look at yourself and your life.
Achieving Work Life Balance
Achieving the correct balance between work and home life and even between social activities is vital if you are to avoid feeling permanently stressed – and tired. This situation arises because people often have too many competing priorities and have not decided what for them is the correct balance in their life – at that time. The key is good time management.
Life changes and our priorities change – sometimes we have to give more attention to things that we would prefer at that time. In other words our short-term priorities conflict with our longer term goals.
What we can do is recognise this and plan a route to a changed situation. Even if we cannot change what we must give most attention to, the mere fact that we re-assess and confirm this (maybe only to ourselves) and then establish a timescale for future change will usually have a positive effect upon our morale.
Assess your Current Work Life Balance
If this describes your situation, then I would urge you to take say half an hour to sit quietly – if appropriate with your spouse or partner – and address the following time management questions:
How much time do you spend on different activities?
What do you value most – and do you spend enough time involved with that?
How much time do you spend on “relaxation” activities, and then afterwards only feel like you have “passed the time” and wish you had done something else?
If when watching TV you sit and channel hop, then later you will probably feel that the time has been largely wasted. Do you do this at all?
Could you simply readjust your schedule to avoid spending time doing things you would not otherwise do? For example could you avoid traffic jams, or idling time whilst you simply wait for others?
Could you persuade others to adjust their schedule so that you can more easily align your schedule to avoid “dead” time?
Could you do chores differently, or at a different time, or with another person, or with some other distraction, so that they would feel a little more “fresh”?
Are you doing more than is necessary when others are in a position to help – if you have children are they old enough to help you and would they benefit from taking some responsibility? Furthermore, at the right age your children would gain considerably by understanding some of the time management issues that you deal with.
Can you align tasks better, so that you can do two things at the same time?
Could you be better organised so that you save time – for example if you look round your home, does it look visually well organised or disorganised?
Do you delay starting some tasks because you do not like doing them . If so can you share that task with someone else, or could you do it whilst doing something else?
Do you feel that you have too little time to start and finish tasks, so do not even attempt to start? – a classic symptom of procrastination, and one which can be avoided.
Are you in good physical condition? Getting sufficient exercise, sleep and a well balanced diet will improve your physical condition, which in turn will improve your general feeling of well-being. Too many people blame time management constraints for not taking better care of themselves - do not be one of them!
Thinking in terms of time management, making individually minor changes to our day-to-day routines can significantly improve our situation. Remember the list of suggestions provided above are only examples of what you might do, but should be sufficient to set you thinking about what would be appropriate for your personal situation.
Take Action for a Healthy Work Life Balance
If this has struck a chord with you, don’t just read and dismiss it. Commit to making some changes in your time management and the balance between your home and work life. A good start is to make an open declaration of intent - do it now!
Brian Hazell. |
