Have you been feeling like your work is consuming all your time, leaving you with little time for anything else? You are not alone! Studies have shown that the majority of Americans feel their work-life balance is out of sync.
And so, the question becomes, how do you strike the right work-life balance when working from home so you have time to earn a living as well as live your life?
In this post, we’ll be exploring both the unhealthy habits that cause your work-life balance to be out of whack as well as some healthy ones that you can develop to remedy that. Let’s discover.
But first…
What Is Work-Life Balance?
A healthy work-life balance exists when there’s harmony between your work time and the time you need for your personal life. To achieve this harmony, one must make a conscious decision to manage time allowing them to meet the requirements of their job as well as their personal life.
Here are some characteristics of a healthy work-life balance.
Boundaries
You must set boundaries that clearly define the time you plan to spend working as well as the time needed to do personal things.
This means that when it's time to work, nothing should distract or take you from it unless it is completely unavoidable. Family and friends should understand this and give you the space to work.
This also means no phone calls or interactions with anyone outside of your work environment as this will only cause decreased productivity. Set a time for personal matters during which you will interact with friends or family.
Time Management
This often involves prioritizing tasks and allocating sufficient time for each. Create specific time for work and personal matters, such as taking part in a hobby or spending time with family and friends.
Stress Management
There should be well-defined strategies in place to help manage the stress levels associated with work. i.e., taking regular breaks, taking part in physical activities, or taking time to have fun.
Flexibility
Having a flexible schedule is an important part of building and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. This means that you can change the schedule in case of any unforeseen events, which can either be professional or personal, without hurting your overall productivity.
Let's face it, life is unpredictable, and as much as you may want to stick to your schedule, there will always be unforeseen events such as emergencies and personal errands that can pop up from the blue.
With a flexible schedule, you can move tasks around, ensuring that eventually, you get everything done. The way you can do this is to set the core working hours and then allow for adjustments.
For instance, you can plan to work on your most important tasks when you are most productive, such as during the morning hours. If a development requires you to step outside your schedule, consider moving tasks around so that by the end of the day, everything you have planned is complete.
Why It’s Important to Maintain Proper Work-Life Balance
When it comes to our diet, variety is the key to maintaining good health over the long term. This is certainly true of our work-life balance. One must engage in a variety of activities. It is easy to believe and convince ourselves that we need to always be productive. This, however, is far from reality and what’s even more interesting is that there will be a negative impact of overworking on both employer and employee.
Overworking can leave you open to burnout, stress, health issues, and fatigue. Sometimes working for more hours with lower production.
Unhealthy Work-life Balance How Does It Look Like?
Whenever work takes precedence over everything else in a person’s life, it can negatively affect the individual’s overall well-being. Let’s take a look at some characteristics of an unhealthy work-life balance, shall we?
Overworking
If you are working long hours each day and even find yourself working over the weekends right through to the holidays and lacking time to rest or take part in personal activities, then this is a good sign that your work-life balance is skewed.
Neglecting Personal Life
You might find that you don’t have much of a personal life and spend all of your free time working. You lack hobbies or even time for family.
Burnout
You may find yourself experiencing mental, emotional, and even physical stress and fatigue brought about by the pressures of work.
No self-care
Failing to partake in self-care activities such as getting sufficient amounts of sleep, exercising, and leisure and experiencing deteriorating mental and physical health.
Failing Relationships
You may notice that you are having difficulty maintaining relationships with friends, family, and loved ones as a result of work-related pressures.
Now that we’ve identified what disrupts a healthy work-life balance, let’s explore how you can reclaim control.
How to Improve Work-Life Balance
One thing to always keep in mind when looking to improve your work-life balance is that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all type of solution. It comes down to your unique situation.
Set a Schedule and Stick To It
Working from home means that you have the flexibility to work from anywhere. This, however, can also feel like you need to be available to be online at any time. And things get tricky when having a schedule that’s different from your workmates.
A good way to get around this feeling is to start by setting a schedule and then sticking to it. This ultimately means setting boundaries and allowing the team to tell you when they can or cannot reach you. Furthermore, you can plan your activities outside of the work schedule.
If you notice a trend of new tasks that require you to log in earlier than usual, then perhaps you need to change your schedule to accommodate this.
On the other end of the spectrum. It is easy to experience a drop in productivity when working from home. However, moving meetings around will only translate to more work the following day. Consider making use of video conferencing tools to hold meetings at the right time, allowing you to keep up with the workload even while working from home.
Use Communication Channels to Show When You Are Online
After you’ve created a schedule, the next step would be to publicize your availability online using different messaging tools. This would allow coworkers and clients in different time zones to be able to tell whenever you are online and available for communication.
For instance, you can set your availability on Slack, allowing you to set when you’ll be available to receive notifications during a certain time of day. You can indicate your working hours on Google Calendar, for instance, meaning that now you can decline events that take place outside of the schedule.
All this means that co-workers will become mindful of their working hours and respect personal time.
Take Regular Breaks
Among the many advantages of working from home is that you are able to achieve greater productivity. Since you are free of commuting or even office talk, you have more time to spend working.
On the other hand, you can run into the monotony of working in silence, and the solitude can make you feel lonely sometimes.
One way to get around this issue is to try the Pomodoro technique, which requires you to work for 25 minutes and then take time off for 5 minutes to grab a snack. When you’ve completed 4 cycles, take either a 15-minute break or a 30-minute break.
You might also consider standing up after an hour of work to walk around the house, do yoga, stretch, or even call a friend or respond to missed calls. You can even listen to music for 10 to 15 minutes to help refresh your mind.
After-hour Plans
Working from home also means that the living area and workspace are the same. This can make you feel like you never stepped out of your work environment. Sometimes you might not even see the need to log off your computer.
To get around this, add activities for after-hours. Think of happy hour drinks or even meeting up with close friends for a chat. You might even take this time to hit the gym.
Home Office
Setting up a workspace can help improve your work-life balance and increase productivity. Interestingly, when you work from home, there are a lot more distractions. If you decide to work from the couch, which happens to be the same place where you binge-watch movies, it is easy to get distracted and switch on the TV.
This is why working in a conducive environment, such as a home office, the lobby, or just a work desk, is crucial. The point is to pick a spot that allows you to be productive and focused on your work.
Eat Healthy Food
Working from home also means easy access to the fridge. Chomping down on all those snacks can cause you to develop bad eating habits, which could affect your overall health.
Start by getting rid of all the unhealthy snacks that could be tempting in the fridge. Next, bring in healthy foods and cook whole meals.
Take time away from your work schedule to nourish your body with healthy foods that will not only provide you with the energy you need to work but also leave you feeling rejuvenated and energized, which will help boost your productivity.
Taking a Walk
Consider taking a walk, even if it’s just for 5 minutes. Taking a walk provides a healthy dose of vitamin D, eases physical tension, and clears your mind, relieving the stress of staying in a crouched position all the time from sitting at your desk.
Furthermore, you can clear your mind and re-energize to complete the task at hand!
Role of Portable Power Station
When working from home, the last thing that you want to experience is a power outage. Such a situation can easily leave you paralyzed. With a portable power station, you can work easily knowing that you are protected in case of any unforeseen outages.
From your laptop to WiFi routers and other accessories, you know that you’ll have sufficient power supply to keep you productive. In case of a storm, for instance, you can rely on a high-capacity power station like the BLUETTI Elite 200 V2 Portable Power Station to keep your home office equipment running for hours, helping you focus on the task at hand thanks to its 2073 Wh capacity and up to 2600W of output.
If you are on a budget when setting up your work-from-home space, consider the BLUETTI AC70 Portable Power Station. You have 7 different output ports, allowing you to charge multiple devices simultaneously. To help you make the most of your portable power station, make regular checks to ensure it is charged and ready to offer you backup in case there’s an outage.
Conclusion
Having a healthy work-life balance is important if you are looking to boost productivity as well as for overall well-being. With a lack of clear boundaries, it is easy to fall into burnout and stress caused by overworking, which will ultimately result in poor health.
Creating a structured schedule, taking regular breaks, and incorporating after-work activities are just some of the ways you can improve your work-life balance. But ultimately, creating and maintaining a healthy work-life balance is an ongoing process that will need conscious choices. There is no universal solution. However, prioritizing work as well as personal life can result in greater satisfaction and a rise in performance.
