Work-life balance often feels like a myth rather than an achievable goal. How are you supposed to strike an agreeable compromise between your work and your life, anyway? While it may seem impossible, there are concrete steps you take to keep work from overwhelming your life, from prioritizing your health to taking weekends off for good. Here are seven strategies to help you pursue work-life balance:
1. Schedule your downtime
We often think of downtime or “me” time as something that happens when we don’t have anything else on our calendar and we’ve run out of tasks to complete—but that’s an unhealthy way to look at it, and let’s face it: In our workaholic culture, downtime is probably never going to “just happen.” You need to plan for it as you do for meetings and social events.
Look over your schedule for natural openings or places where you can make breaks happen, and then put them on your calendar. Blocking off that downtime will ensure that you a) don’t forget, and b) don’t just keep working or doing when you’re supposed to be recovering.
2. Prioritize your health
If your health is poor, optimizing other areas of your life can only go so far. Work can distract us from our symptoms—and even cause some of them—as we tell ourselves we “don’t have time” to schedule a doctor’s appointment. If you’re having health issues, listen to your body and schedule a doctor visit rather than ignoring them. If you need to take a mental health day, do it. Don’t only wait until there’s a health problem: You can also take preventive steps at work as well, such as wearing compression socks to promote better circulation and drinking plenty of water to stay hydrated.
3. Work smarter, not harder
You may feel pressured to do everything yourself and say “yes” to every new task at work to prove what a dedicated employee you are, but if you’ve already got a good work ethic, your bosses probably know that by now. Instead, look for tasks that you can delegate to others or eliminate from your plate completely.
When someone comes to you with a new request, take a serious look at your existing task list and honestly evaluate whether you have the time or energy to take it on. If you’re truly drowning in work, talk to your supervisor about hiring someone to help you out, whether that’s an intern, contractor, or full-time employee.
4. Be efficient with your chores
Like work, chores can overwhelm your life if you let them: You need to cook and to clean your kitchen for sure, and vacuuming and mopping would be good, and who knows the last time you cleaned your bathroom … the list goes on and on. Each week make a list of chores that need to get done and prioritize them in the order of importance. Then look for opportunities to get them done quickly.
For example, rather than cooking time-consuming meals, you can look for 30-minute recipes, or do big-batch cooking on weekends so you can eat on leftovers during the week. If you can, try to sprinkle in at least a few chores during the week so you’re not left with a laundry list (pun intended) when your precious weekend comes around.
5. Take evenings and weekends off, for real
Back in the old days, when you left the office, you were off for the night. There was no way to reach you except by telephone, and, even then, it was only used for emergencies. But now, thanks to technology, we can send and receive work-related communication at any hour of the day or night, even if it’s outside normal business hours—or not even a business day at all.
While you’ll occasionally have to deal with a true work emergency outside regular hours, resist the pressure to check email or Slack on evening and weekends. Instead, act like you are on vacation as much as possible—a vacation where you are definitely not trying to sneak in work on your phone.
6. Make technology work for you
Speaking of technology, make sure that you’re truly thinking through what apps and software you’re using in your life. There are some great apps out there that can truly help with your work-life balance, such as to-list management and calendar syncing, but, once you’ve found the suite of apps that works for you and your team or family, resist the pressure to keep downloading the hottest new software. No matter how helpful your technology is, make sure you schedule time to get away from screens and go do another activity: exercise, cook, read a book, etc. This will give your eyes and your brain a much-needed rest.
7. Be intentional with what you want from your life
Block off some time one evening or weekend to list what you want from your life, whether you’ve currently got it or not. Do you want to spend time with friends and family? Learn a new skill? Travel more? Improve your sleep? Finally start a workout routine? You might be surprised at what’s on the list vs. what you actually do in your life.
Don’t try to start adding everything into your life all at once; instead, pick one or two of your top priorities and start small. For example, if your goal is to spend more time with family, start with planning a family dinner once a week. If you want to work out regularly, sign up for one or two recurring classes that will keep you accountable.
If you’re currently overwhelmed by work, taking control of your work-life balance can seem completely impossible. Rather than assigning yourself all these changes at once, focus on small goals to begin: start wearing compression socks to work, or put away your phone one evening a week. Then, as you start building momentum, you’ll be able to make more and more changes to improve the quality of both your work life and your non-work life.
