Improve Work Life Balance - 6 Tips

Is it possible to specifically improve one's own work-life balance? Pretty much everything in life - from your body to riding a bike - works best in one state: balance. This is especially true when it comes to the balance between your work and your personal life, which is called work-life balance. Although this term can be somewhat misleading because it implies that life and work are two different things (which they are not), it makes a lot of sense to pay attention to a healthy balance between your work and your personal life. 

But a good work-life balance can be a challenge for many people. That's why in this article I'll give you 6 tips to improve your work life balance and keep your life in a pleasant equilibrium.

The best tips for a better work life balance

Even if some of the following tips seem obvious, they are not. Use them in the future for a healthy balance in your life.

1. draw clear boundaries

In this day and age, thanks to technology, it is becoming easier and easier to Boundaries between work and leisure blur Some people spend a significant amount of time at work sending personal messages or following the newsfeed on social media. On the other hand, if we were to add up the time we spend away from work responding to work-related emails or messages, some people would also spend a fair amount of time doing that.

This can quickly lead to us never feeling fully at work and never fully at leisure. As a result, we easily get feelings of guilt and feel stressed. Ergo: our work life balance is affected. To counteract this and improve your work-life balance, make a conscious decision to divide your day strictly into working hours and free time. 

When you are working, focus completely on your work and save all other things for later. Stick to your Schedule. Make sure that you do your daily workload so that you are not needed after work. Be 100% in your free time after work and allow yourself to enjoy it undisturbed. This way you will work much more focused and productive and afterwards you can enjoy your free time with a clear conscience.

2. schedule time for yourself

Your work is an important part of your life, but not your whole life. That's why you should also prioritize the other important parts of your life so that your work-life balance is at peace with itself. When you're setting your weekly schedule, plan for Time with your family and friends and create windows of time in which you can Hobbies can pursue. 

Not only does this ensure that you give your private life enough space. You also have something additional to look forward to during your work. This gives you an incentive to get your work done efficiently, so you don't have to cancel your appointments and plans.

3. make sure you like your work

If you loathe your work, it will be very difficult for you to maintain your work-life balance. Of course, you don't have to love every single part of your work passionately. But if you dread your work day every morning when you get up, your work life balance will undoubtedly suffer. If your work is draining your energy and consuming you, then something is going wrong. Then it could be that you find yourself in a situation that you feel is harmful working environment you are. 

Perhaps your work colleagues or your supervisor have a noticeably negative influence on you. Or you are doing a job that does not suit you at all. In that case, you may want to think about looking for a new job. new job to look around. 

A first point of contact for this could be the new Job portal for sustainable jobs of CareElite. There you will find many exciting and, above all, sustainable job offers that give you the opportunity to find a job that you really like. With added value for yourself, society and our environment.

4. disconnect

We live in a digitized worldin which we can always be available. Being always available puts us in a state of constant readiness. And even though your constant availability has many advantages, it is difficult in this state to give your attention only to yourself. Theoretically, the next message, notification or call could arrive at any moment. Being always available can prevent other things that are more important from coming to the surface. 

So it makes sense to disconnect from your work and everything else from time to time.

This can be small Timeouts can be like going for a walk for fifteen minutes without looking at your cell phone. Some people find it very relaxing and enriching to meditate for 10 minutes a day with their cell phone turned off. Maybe you would also like to spend half a day off in the countryside and do nothing.

Such things clearly help you to take a step back, come down and recharge your physical and mental batteries. And who knows? Maybe the brilliant idea you've been waiting for so long will come to you during such a time-out.

5. move

Mankind has developed in the African savannah and not in the open-plan office. To move little according to today's average lifestyle does not correspond to our physical and mental disposition. Such a physical underload can lead to fatigue and listlessness and undermine our work-life balance. Conversely, an appropriate amount of exercise is what brings us to our optimal performance. 

And even though it can be difficult to fit an exercise session or a trip to the gym into your packed work week, the positive effects on your Energy levelYour ability to concentrate, your mood, your health and the quality of your sleep make up for it many times over. A regular exercise session is therefore highly recommended. It is better to do several short sessions spread over the week instead of one long one. For example, it is better to jog for twenty minutes three times a week than to go running for an hour once a week.

In the article about More energy in everyday life you will get additional information about it.

6. create a daily mini happiness ritual for yourself

Anticipation and Gratitude are two tremendous supporters of a healthy work life balance. That's why it makes a lot of sense to support these two supporters. And how?

Well, first of all, your brain is a creature of habit. Everything it does regularly, it does well. You can take advantage of this fact to experience the exhilarating feelings of anticipation and gratitude much more often and much more intensely. 

To do this, you can use an exercise called a "happiness diary" in psychology. Every morning, take two minutes and write down three things that you are looking forward to that day. And these can be small things, such as "today I'm meeting a good friend", "today I'm working with a nice co-worker" or simply "today the sun is shining and I'm looking forward to seeing the blue sky".

In the evening, when you go to bed, you can write down three things for which you are grateful that day. And here, too, it can be tiny little things. Our emotions follow our attention and so even a "little thing" can give us noticeable feelings of happiness. These can be experiences such as "I worked productively today," "I had a nice conversation with a co-worker," or "The exercise today did me a world of good.

For some people it may seem superfluous to write down such things briefly. Perhaps along the lines of "I know I'm meeting with a good friend today. Why should writing it down make me happier?" However, just knowing and writing it down are two different things. Because as psychological studies show, such a happiness diary causes a continuous increase in your well-being and thus also an improved work-life balance.

Tips to improve work life balance

In short, virtually all of the advice I've mentioned is aimed at you taking care of yourself and consciously creating your work life balance. It is often easy to let ourselves be tempted to work more and neglect ourselves. Or to let our work slide, but secretly have a guilty conscience about it. But it is often small changes in our everyday life that have a big effect. 

With many of these small changes, you create a win/win situation in your work life balance. Balance in your private life makes you happier, which has a positive effect on your physical and mental health and thus also on your work performance. Balance in your work life, in turn, allows you to enjoy your free time more. 

Whether you strictly divide your day into work time and free time, whether you regularly unplug from everything, or whether you incorporate short exercise sessions into your daily routine: all these things cost comparatively little time compared to their noticeably positive effect on your life.

I hope my tips can help you. If you have any other suggestions for a successful work-life balance, just post them in the comments.

Many greetings,

PS.: In the Work & Finance Blog you will find more valuable tips for a balanced everyday life. Learn there for example, When a job makes you happy makes.

PS.: Falls du den Absatz überlesen hast: Im Sustainable job portal of CareElite you can find jobs with real added value for yourself, the environment and society.