Do you feel like your work is taking over your life? And do you often feel stressed because no matter how much you try to do, there always seems like more work waiting for you? And you’re stuck because you have to repeat every day doing the same thing over and over again?
If you do, you need to improve your work-life balance.
All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. I bet you have heard this phrase before. This is why work-life balance is important.
Yes, you want to pursue your goals and you want to work hard to achieve a better career or business success.
And yes, you want to have time off and enjoy life.
The question is can you have both? Can you have both work and life balance so that you can live a more fulfilling life?
The answer is yes. But you must learn how to manage both your work and life properly. And here are 7 useful tips to help you improve your work-life balance…
1. Set a boundary for both work and play
That’s right, the first thing you want to do is to set a boundary for both your work and play. You want to work, but at the same time, you want to have time off to enjoy life with your family or even for yourself.
Hence, the best way to do it is to set boundaries. For example, if you are self-employed and you work for yourself, many times, your weekend will be just another workday.
Thus, you want to set a boundary for this. Don’t work over the weekend. Use your weekend to rejuvenate and relax, enjoy your life, and have fun.
I can relate to this because I’m a full-time blogger and internet marketer. I focused on my work from Monday to Thursday. And I use Friday as a more casual and relaxed day. On a normal day, I started work at about 9 AM. But for Friday, I started work late, usually at around 11 AM. I spend more time reading before I work.
And I also play mobile games from time to time. But I only play the games once I completed my most important task of the day. And this is how I set boundaries to improve my work-life balance.
You have to set rules and limit both work and play. You don’t want to work 24 hours and have no time to enjoy life. Similarly, you don’t want to play all day and not get your work done. Because if you do, you’ll never really enjoy your play. You’ll feel guilty.
Do you get it? So, set boundaries for how you approach your work and life.
2. Always plan your play first
Most people get it wrong by planning their work first. No, that’s not how you should approach planning.
Instead, you should plan your play and life first. Why?
According to Neil Fiore, the best-selling author of The Now Habit, you want to let yourself know that there’s play and time off to enjoy life. So, you won’t feel stressed or procrastinate because of overwhelming.
Once you have slotted in time off and play into your schedule, your mind understands that there will be time for relaxation and enjoyment, hence, you are more likely to work harder and be able to focus better on your work.
This is why you should always plan your playtime first. Give yourself plenty of time to enjoy so that you will want to work harder.
Sounds contradicting, I know, but this is how our minds work. I strongly recommend you read this book to understand more…
3. Plan and prioritize your work
When it comes to work-life balance, you want to plan and prioritize your work. You don’t want to spend time working on things that don’t get you results.
You see, one reason people are burned out and feeling overwhelmed is that they have too much on their plate. They overestimated themselves and try to do everything together.
This will not work. You want to be productive, not busy. You can be busy the whole day but in the end, accomplish nothing and make no progress.
For instance, reading a book or watching a video on how to build a website may make you ‘feel’ productive, but it is not. You can spend the whole day watching a video on how to build a website, but at the end of the day, make no progress.
Just like bookkeeping. If you are running a business, bookkeeping is necessary, but it will not your business grow.
This is why you want to prioritize your tasks and work on the one that gives you the most result first.
Once you have completed the tasks that give you the most result, you can then go slow and have more time for yourself.
Achieving a work-life balance is not about getting the most out of your day or doing the most things, it is about being productive and doing what matters most.
Read: 10 Tips How to Plan Your Day and Live a More Successful Life
4. Take time off and unplug yourself
This is common sense. As I mentioned above, you want to take time off and unplug yourself.
You have to understand that there are 2 modes of action:
- Acceleration – This is when you take action and work on your tasks.
- Navigation – This is where you plan and review your work and goals.
Most people understand acceleration because they were told if they want to succeed, they need to take massive action and work hard.
But a lot of people underestimate the importance of navigation.
Read: Why Having a Vision is Important to Your Success in Business and Life
You want to have time off for planning and to think about your future. There’s no point to work hard on something that’s not what you want.
Speed is important, but if you’re running in the wrong direction, speed becomes irrelevant.
This is why you need both acceleration and navigation. You want to spend time thinking and planning for the future you want. And at the same time, you want to take action and work on your plan.
That’s how you achieve a better work-life balance.
5. Delegate, outsource, and make use of technology
Another tip to help you improve work-life balance is delegation, outsourcing, and making good use of technology.
In today’s world, almost everything can be automated. As an internet marketer, I know how everything can be outsourced and automated through tools and software.
For example, if I want to build a website, I can hire a freelancer to do it for me. I can even hire a writer to write my blog posts for me. And I can use software and tools to help me get my work done faster and more efficiently.
If you are trying to get everything done by yourself, you should change your thinking and learn how to automate things.
Think about Richard Branson. He is a billionaire, and do you know his company, Virgin Group, controls over 400 businesses in various industries?
Branson has 24 hours a day, which is the same as you and I. But, how did he manage to accomplish so much more while still having time to enjoy life? He exercises, kitesurf, swims, and has breakfast with his family almost every day.
One word – automation. Branson understands the only way to accomplish more is through delegation, outsourcing, and leveraging other people’s time and energy.
If you want to achieve a better work-life balance, that’s what you should do as well.
6. Improve yourself
Next, improve and work on yourself. The key is to become your best self so that you can get more done.
Just like this saying from Abraham Lincoln:
“If I only had an hour to chop down a tree, I would spend the first 45 minutes sharpening my axe.”
If you want to live a better life and at the same time accomplish more at work, you can’t just do things blindly and then pray for the best.
Achieving success in both work and life is all about strategy and planning. As I always said, success doesn’t happen by accident, but by design.
You want to spend time thinking about your strategy, and design your life in such a way that you can achieve the most with less. In short, you want to set yourself up to win.
This is why you should work on yourself, improve yourself, and prepare yourself for what’s coming.
The more you improve yourself, the more resourceful you become. And the resourceful you become, the more you can achieve, and the more you get to enjoy life.
Read: 10 Practices How to Improve Yourself Every Day
7. Understand the Law of Gestation
In this blog post, I talked about the business and success timing through understanding the Law of Gestation.
The law states that everything takes time and has its own time to grow and mature before you can see the results.
Think about growing bamboo. It takes a couple of years for the bamboo to reach full maturity. No matter how suitable the environment or how much water you give it, you cannot force it to grow overnight.
The same is true for your business, work, or whatever you are trying to achieve in life. Everything takes time and you cannot force things to happen.
A cat’s pregnancy lasts about 65 days before it delivers the baby kitten. The gestation period for a cow is approximately 274 days before you can get a cattle. As for humans, the pregnancy period is about 40 weeks.
Therefore, you can’t force things. You cannot force your business to grow and make a million dollars in a month. Everything takes time, my friend.
So, what does the Law of Gestation has to do with work-life balance? Everything.
It means that when it is time to work, you put in 100% commitment and focus to work. You cannot force results to come. You may work harder, but things will still take time to materialize.
Thus, work when it is time to work and enjoy guilt-free play when you’re taking time off.
Your business and goals and dreams are going to take time to grow from ideation to realization. Give it time. Don’t rush over things because you can’t. Just do what you can today, and the rest will take care of itself.
Understanding the Law of Gestation is a principle that will help you improve your work-life balance.
If you want to do better in both work and life, you must learn to master your mind. How you think will greatly impact your work and life. You want to attend this exclusive web class to change your brain to earn more, live more, and be more.