Can you believe it’s already halfway through the year?! Time passes so quickly, especially when you are busy. Before you know it, 6 months have passed, and you are left wondering what you have done other than work. It’s easy to get caught up in the busy-ness of daily life and forget to take time for ourselves. Balancing work and our personal lives is far easier said than done, but with that being said, we’re going to give you some ideas and tools that you can implement in your own lives.

Mindset

The biggest challenge in creating a healthy work-life balance is our denial about needing one. Media and many previous generations admire productivity above all else, and, often, at the cost of everything else. Realising that this mindset is not sustainable is the first step. Sounds easy, but you are going to have to fight that productivity guilt on a daily basis.

Whether or not your work is your passion, you cannot run on productivity alone. We all know the saying, “You cannot pour from an empty cup”.  This is perhaps even more true for those of us who are passionate about our work. We pour so much energy and time into our work days, but how can we do this if our battery is low?

Time-management 

It is too easy to come home after a full day of work and collapse onto the couch. While we do need to have time for rest and recovery, there are many different means of resting. How often have you had a lack of wanting to go to the gym, but felt absolutely amazing after going afterall? If we leave making decisions until the moment we need to make them, we are going to be ruled by our current emotions, rather than what we know is going to be good for us. 

A way around this is to schedule your week ahead of time. But do leave some room for spontaneous or unexpected events, we are only human after all. The important factor here is to be realistic. If you know you are not a morning person, don’t plan to go to the gym at 5am. If you struggle with afternoon fatigue, don’t plan to run all your errands immediately after work. Only you can determine what will work for you and what demands there are on your time. Play around with different schedules and see what works for you!

Some final tips

Don’t forget to allow some time for hobbies, social plans and rest. If an hour on the couch with your favourite series recharges you enough to tackle a task, then schedule it right in there! How we go about doing a task is just as important as actually doing the task. 

When you know that you are working with a schedule to prioritise the important things, you allow yourself to have time for quality rest. Instead of catching yourself procrastinating and needing to rumble of a lot of tasks because of guilt or deadlines. Recharging will happen easier and you will be ready to tackle your day!

If this alone hasn’t convinced you, listen to one of the greats:

“Don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” – Dolly Parton

Also see our previous blog post on the topic of stress. Perhaps that can also help you in how you pursue you weekly tasks!