Ways to restore your teetering work-life balance

The terms work/life balance and balanced-life are commonly used to describe various aspects of life satisfaction.

If you feel that your work life balance is teetering on the edge, it is time to make changes before the problems overwhelm you.

Here are strategies that, taken together, can help to change course without abandoning the destination and help you restore your work life balance.

Identify energy leaks
Use energy inventory to assess the quality of your work life balance.

Call your energy home by noticing where you are gaining or losing energy.

Simply notice without judgment, holding yourself whole, competent, and resourceful to redirect your energy when you choose to do so.

Once you have identified your energy leaks, you will begin to recognise ways to close them and regain work life balance.

Each time you close an energy leak you become more focused, clear, and balanced.

Be patient, be honest, and you will soon develop the momentum to live your life in a more satisfying manner.

Negotiate a change with your current employer
Progressive employers recognise the value of good employees, and many are willing to find ways to help current employees deal with short-term or permanent changes caused by family situations.

The changes can include flex time, job-sharing, telecommuting, or part-time employment.

Your first step is to research your employer’s policies and methods of handling previous requests.

Then go to your boss armed with information and a plan that shows how you will be an even more valuable and productive employee if you can modify your current work situation.

Attitude is everything.
No matter how much you love your job, no matter how big a part of your life it is, ultimately you need to be able to “turn it off” and spend some time not working.

This is hard for a lot of people, because their work is an important part of who they are as people. This can be admirable, especially when you accomplish great things in your work, but an always-on-the-job attitude can be harmful in the long run.

What’s more, it might even reduce your effectiveness in your work — both the mind and body need a break from thinking about and doing the same things all the time to recharge and keep coming up with fresh ideas.

Keep a rational schedule
The more you’re trying to juggle, the more important it is to make a good schedule and keep to it. Block out all your work and non-work commitments and make sure to allow plenty of downtime and non-work time.

Treat non-work commitments as seriously as you treat working commitments — the time you’ve assigned to family, housework, and your own activities needs to be just as inviolable as the time you spend in the office, going to meetings, or meeting deadlines.

This is especially true if you’re so busy that you can’t reschedule that off-work time.

Learn to say “No.”
If you’re having trouble keeping on top of everything going on in your life, it may be that you’ve committed more time than you have.

If you’re like me (and just about everyone else), you don’t like to refuse favours, new responsibilities, or even casual requests, for fear of looking undependable; upsetting someone and missing out on something.

Make a point of seriously considering any request that comes your way, and double-check your schedule before taking anything else on.

When it’s too much, don’t be afraid to refuse — you won’t be doing anyone any good by taking on tasks that you won’t be able to do well because you’re too overwhelmed to handle them, or by accepting social invitations that you’re too stressed out to enjoy.

Clean out your mental closet
There’s substantial evidence that managing the way we think can have a profound and lasting effect on mood and motivation.

To nurture our nature, we also have to discard all the old notions and the negative beliefs that keep us from springing forth.

Write positive affirmations that counter such beliefs and post such statements at places where you’ll see them often.

Don’t worry if you don’t yet truly believe such statements. Action often precedes belief. Identify what activity you will discard because it feels too tight and constraining.

Batch it
Batching tasks can be a great way to get more done in less time, whether it’s handling your work e-mail or your mail at home.

You’ll work faster and better because your mind is only on one thing, and when it’s done, you can forget it — so worrying about that bill you have to pay or that e-mail you should respond to doesn’t “spill over” into the rest of your day. You know that your bill will get paid during your normal bill-paying time.

Get it ‘wrong’ the first time
Sounds funny!

The idea is to give yourself a set amount of time — say, an hour — to do the job, no matter how poorly.

Let go of your perfectionism and just do as well as you can in the set time. You may have to go back and fix it up — but you’ll be charged up by knowing the “heavy lifting” is already done.

Plus, by forcing yourself to cram the whole job into a short time period, you’ll give yourself a more “global” view that might help you see things you wouldn’t have otherwise.

Obviously, this isn’t going to apply to every situation — if your boss comes to you with a last-minute report that has to be generated, this will work great; but if your boss asks you to fill in for the other neurosurgeon, who got caught in traffic, a little perfectionism is probably in order.

Keep the lines of communication open
I learned this the hard way when a rough patch of work started to alienate me from my family.

Let the people closest to you know what’s going on in your work life when things get hectic, so they don’t feel like your lowest priority or worse, suddenly abandoned.

And keep your ears open to hear what they tell you, too — if your spouse or partner, your friends, or your kids start complaining — or tell you straight out that you’re working too much — listen to them. They’re generally going to be a better judge of your behaviour than you are.

Slow down and let things go
It’s simpler said than done, but learn to let things go once in a while. So what if the dishes don’t get washed everyday or that the house doesn’t get vacuumed every week.

Learn to recognise the things that don’t really have much impact in your life and allow yourself to let them go — and then not beat yourself up for doing so.

Life is simply too short, so don’t let things pass you in a blur. Take steps to stop and enjoy the things and people around you.

Schedule more time between meetings; don’t make plans for every evening or weekend, and find some ways to distance yourself from the things that are causing you the most stress.