Is work life balance dead?

Gauri Chhabra
A few years ago, there was a lot of fur ore over work life balance. An attempt was made to separate work from personal life. Today, does work life balance even exist? Maybe it existed before the advent of smart phones, email, text and voicemail – it was possible to draw a line between work and personal time. You could leave an office at 5pm on Friday and not physically or mentally return to work until Monday.
The lines are constantly blurring.I’m frequently asked what I think of this blurring of work and life. From what I have seen, if you don’t like your job, you’re more likely to have clear-cut boundaries between your work life and your personal life. Once the clock hits 5 or 6pm then you’re out of there and don’t want to see, hear, or think about work for the rest of the night!
I work a lot because I love what I do. But because I love what I do, I don’t consider it work. This is both good and bad. It is good because I am living my purpose in life. It is bad because I sometimes don’t know when to shift focus elsewhere.The problem arises when you start to neglect other important areas of your life. Areas which, if not balanced, will negatively influence your ability to be successful and happy, like:Effective time management, proper nutrition, sleep and exercise, quality time with family, friends and loved ones.Guilt from not spending quality and focused time with family, friends and loved ones affects your focus. This, combined with a lack of sleep, an unbalanced diet and little to no exercise can create the perfect storm for high stress, anxiety and failure.
Sometimes, in a racing world, we need to slow down, take a step back, and breathe.
Taking your time in a culture where everyone else seems to be rushing can also give you a distinct advantage.
Take out time for:
‘Me’ time:
While technology offers amazing advances to simplify our lives, it also makes it near impossible to escape the ringing and buzzing of your cell phone or continual inundation of emails. But we must manage technology’s grip and set aside time to relax, unwind and enjoy our family and friends. You may think you do this already, but is this time always without interruption?
Who has time these days – time to listen, time to concentrate, time, even, to think?
It seems like we’re all increasingly in a rush. We’re often quick to say we’re busy.Technology doesn’t always help here. It can leave us with the feeling that there’s always something else to do – messages to reply to, platforms to check, updates to post.
Messages scream at us to respond “now, now, now”, rather than taking our time, or thinking things through. We keep answering but the messages keep coming … we’ll never be finished.
Do something you enjoy which focuses entirely on you: self-improvement, classes, sports, charity work or simply reading a book, listening to music, going to the movies.Shut off your phone, computer and any devices diverting your focus away from time to think, relax, recharge and have fun.Make sure you eat right and sleep seven to nine hours a day. Commit to a weekly exercise program.Your family, friends and co-workers will benefit from these changes, too. They’ll appreciate your lower stress levels and renewed focus.
Small things make a big difference.
‘You’ time:
When you give someone your undivided attention, they notice. Do this rather than half-listening and half-scrolling, or half-talking and half-typing, and you’ll quickly see the difference. When you give 100% attention, you’re saying that the person you’re listening to is important. You’re committing time and attention to the conversation, rather than suggesting it’s not worth your time as you glance at a screen. People like to feel they are being properly listened to. Giving 100% attention will quickly make a difference to your relationships and your business communication. While you’re talking, ignore incoming beeps from phones, tablets or computers. Better still, put phones out of sight.
‘Think’ Time’
Take out some time to think and join the dots. It’s called a thinking process for a reason. Coming up with ideas takes time. But too often, we don’t give ourselves this time. One of the perils of the digital world is that ideas get cut off mid-flow by incoming distractions. We answer to a distraction and our half-developed thought is gone. There’s also a danger that we settle for surface thinking or soundbites rather than in-depth thought or considered work. Or we focus on our thoughts being validated, liked, or shared, rather than putting the emphasis on creating,thinking for ourselves, and being original. Bright ideas can also be hampered when we get caught up in our day-to-day mountain of tasks. To join the dots, our minds need time to wander. If we don’t give ourselves a minute to step back, this won’t happen. We often come up with good ideas when we are doing a seemingly unrelated task, including during downtime. A conversation we’ve had in one strand of our work might provide the perfect answer for a problem in a seemingly unrelated area – if we leave ourselves time to make the connection. So take time to step back.
‘Mind’ time’:
How long can you concentrate on a task for? How long can you read a book or article for, uninterrupted? How long can you watch a film for without distractions? Focus skills are becoming more valuable as people are becoming more and more easily distracted. This distraction has huge implications in the workplace, particularly in the field of productivity. Can the people you work with concentrate on their work for extended spells of time? Or do they get distracted and break off from their task every 15 minutes? Taking time to concentrate on one task at a time improves your productivity  Rather than feeling like you’re rushing as you bat away small distracting task after small distracting task, if you concentrate on just one major task  you’ll feel like you have plenty of time.
‘Reply’ Time:
What if you didn’t reply instantly? What if you took time to think about what you wanted to say instead? What if you stepped back and decided which messages were urgent, and which, in fact, could wait. The pressure to respond instantly means we often give priority – and time – to things that are less important than our major tasks and goals, taking away time from those key projects. Stepping back by pausing gives us perspective. Another benefit of a delayed response is that it gives us time to compose a considered reply. Replying without thinking can lead to us saying yes to things that we don’t have time for, or making poor decisions. If there are questions you need to think through, it often pays to consider them. A powerful, meaningful, well-thought through response is surely worth the wait. Judge whether each message needs an instant response or not. Remember, the pressure we feel to respond instantly is often driven by an expectation we place on ourselves.
Remember, it is in your hands. Write your own life trajectory.

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