How to Achieve Work Life Balance
Plan to be your best friend, not your own worst enemy! |
There are many sitautions, life experiences, and "things" that can have a positive or a negative impact on you level of work and life balance.
Anxiety about the effect your work is having on your family and friends, stress from overstretching yourself at work and working too many hours, are all factors as well as trying to be all things to everybody in the 21st century is tough going.
It's hardly surprising therefore that in a recent survey around 60% of the UK working population indicated that they were unhappy and unfulfilled.
What Can I Do About It?
The first thing is to raise your awareness, awareness of what is needed to survive in the 21st Century
Becoming aware of your human needs is perhaps the most valauble action step you could possibly take.
What are the Basic Human Needs?
- Security - Safe territory and the room to unfold well
- The need for attention (to give and receive it)
- The need for autonomy and control
- Being emotionally connected to others - friendship, love, intimacy
- Being part of a wider community
- Having a sense of status within social groupings
- A sense of competence and achievement (the answer to low "self esteem"
- The need for privacy - to reflect on and consolidate experience
- The need for meaning - that comes from being stretched, physically and mentally
The second step is to formulate a plan of action
That is why it is so important that you combine Positive Mental Attitude with Positive Mental Action.
As George Peppard said in the A Team, “I Have a Plan”
The Plan!
Following is a simple 5 step plan that will allow you to finally achieve work life balance.
But before we introduce you to those steps, are your needs being met? in a healthy way? please contact us here at Work Life Balance Tips where you can complete your very own Human Needs Analysis, this analysis will ensure that you have the foundations in place to begin your action plan.
Let's Take Stock
Are you out of kilter? Is work spilling into your home life, or conversely, is your home life having a major influence on your work? Are you stressed, or anxious, angry or frustrated? If you are then it is really important that you take action to address those issues, the best thing to do is to talk to someone you can trust. Awareness will enable you to make choices. Those choices will be made using trust—trust in yourself and in your awareness.
A Simple Exercise
A simple way to analyse your work life balance is to get a piece of paper and start outlining your daily activities. Try to be as specific as possible. Start as soon as you wake each day and continue until you crawl back into bed for the night.
Track your activities for one week. Then sit down, get comfortable, and take a look at where you’re spending your time.
Are you working more than you should? Are you spending less time with your partner and children than you’d like? Are you continually leaving work things till the last minute because of home commitments?
Are you rushing to get to work on time? Once you have established whether or not your balance is out of kilter, you can then start to put together your plan for better work life balance.
The 5 Steps to a Good Work Life Balance
Step 1Set Goals – Goals are really important, so don’t overlook this step.
Step 2Determine your Relationships – Who are they with? How are they affected? Are you giving and receiving enough attention?
Step 3Work/Home Projects, the two places where all of your human givens should be met.
Step 4Commitment – The getting things done super power. The resource needed to ensure you are stretched physically and mentally
Step 5Focus – Commitment’s number one ally. Where you will ensure competence and a sense of achievement are obtained.
Each of the five steps will be discussed in greater detail in the following pages. You’ll also get additional tips and tools so you can achieve your goal of a better work life balance.
Who benefits From Your Improved Work Life Balance:
Both your Work and Family!
Your Benefits:
- More value in your life
- More balance in your life
- Awareness of what is your best work life balance
- Increased performance
- Relationships are improved on and off job
- A reduction in your stress levels
Your Employer Benefits:
- A measured increase in your productivity, accountability and commitment
- Better communication - Teams and Customers
- Improved Morale
- Less Organisational Stress
Who Should Have A Work Life Balance:
I sincerely believe that everybody should have balance in their lives, the balance between work and home can be difficult to achieve.
There are numerous instances in the workplace where this balance can feel unobtainable, especially is you work with colleagues who are carers for elderly parents, or those co- workers who have children.
They are obvious contenders for work life balance provisions, whilst those wonderful people are important, it is also equally important to realise that your work life balance should not be compromised...talk openly with your colleagues..mutual respect in these situations is crucial.
If you are experiencing difficulties in your workplace and your organisation does not yet have a work life balance policy, now would be a good time to propose that a policy is put in place.
Here are the seven steps you should take when implementing a work life balance policy within your organisation, they are an excellent starting point for raising it as a discussion point in meetings and team briefings.
The Seven Steps to Work Life Balance Policies
The Seven Steps:
1. Find out what you and your employees' needs are, and how far they are being met.
2. Focus on your organisations culture.
3. Improve personal and organisational efficiency
4. Set up work life policies and benefit arrangements.
5. Inform and train your managers.
6. Communicate the policies and benefits.
7. Evaluate work-life balance success by measuring employee and customer satisfaction.
How not to manage work-life balance:
Don't
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Try to "impose" a work-life balance, or introduce it without consultation and co-operation.≠
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Assume that you only need to target women with children or employees with elderly dependants.
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Think that flexibility is only appropriate to certain work settings.
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Discriminate.