Being passionate about work is great, but it is even more important to be passionate about your life overall. Life is much more than just work. Living a true life comprises of striking a right kind of work-life balance. Working for sure is important and also a necessity most of the times in order to earn money, but if you indulge only in working and do not spend time enjoying that money and living your life freely, what’s the point of working so hard? Here are some tips to help you create a perfect work-life balance
Play to your strengths
Spend time doing things you are good at, and those who you aren’t a master of, it’s better to delegate or outsource rather than wasting time trying to do so.
Prioritize your time
Making a to-do list is a good habit, but just adding 20 tasks to your list won’t help, prioritizing them in the following categories will help you manage your time better
Urgent and important
Important but not urgent
Urgent but not important
Neither urgent nor important.
Know your peaks and troughs
Are you a morning person or evening?
If you are a morning person then assign tough, high-concentration tasks to the mornings. Don’t leave the tough tasks until it’s evening and vice versa.
Plot some personal time
Personal time is as important as your work, so in between work allow some ‘me’ time, speak to your friends and peers, call up the family and take some time off from work routine.
Have set work hours
Set yourself working hours and try sticking to them more often than not. Extending working hours doesn’t necessarily mean you are being productive; a lot of times, we just tend to linger on to things and end up extending the working hours. Plan your time well and stick to timelines. Rather than extending your work time by two hours in the evening, start half an hour early the next day and you will realize that you will be able to achieve what you want.
Family and Friends
Include family commitments – such as holidays, birthday parties, etc. – so you don’t forget that you are unavailable for work on those days. Take out time for family holidays or hanging out with friends, and if you live with your family, make a point to leave work on time and spend some time home relaxing with the family.
Use Technology Whenever You Can
Try and avoid wasting time traveling for every meeting, use Skype and other video conferencing applications to save on time and make it more productive. In fact, even for client meetings if the technology doesn’t work, meet them halfway, don’t always spend time going all the way to their office. Suggest meeting at a coffee shop, which works half way for both the parties. Saving time on traveling could be used for working for the client and even the client would understand and respect the same.
Exercise and Meditate
A healthy mind comes from a healthy body, so do take efforts to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Exercising and meditation help in keeping both the body and mind fit.
