There are many, many people who talk about the importance of work-life balance, which is great, except they rarely talk about how to achieve this supposedly amazing, perfect, and zen-like state of life. Focus too much on your personal life, and your career will come to a standstill. Focus too much on your career, and you’re sure to contract burnout and a lingering distaste for office snacks.
As someone who has tipped the scale in both directions to the extreme, take it from me: balancing the two sides, personal and professional, is one of the best ways to have a happy and fulfilling life. I’m no HR expert, and I’m still figuring out life as I go, but I do have some tried-and-true tips that I’ve implemented that have successfully helped myself and others balance the scales of work and life. There’s no cookie-cutter or one-size-fits-all answer to achieving work-life balance, but I believe that everyone can use many of the tips shared below to create a calmer, happier, and more balanced life.
Let’s dive in!
Quick-Glance Summary
- Prioritize yourself over your career
- Keep your personal and work schedules separate
- Choose a job that you are good at and (mostly) enjoy
- Clearly establish your work hours (preferably in a legally binding document)
- Use your PTO!
- Enjoy hobbies other than work
- Connect with loved ones and people outside the office
What Is Work-Life Balance?
Work-life balance is the equilibrium between your professional life and your personal one. This equilibrium, or balance, is necessary for your mental health, physical health, and overall wellbeing.
Why Is Work-Life Balance Important?
From burnout to chronic health issues, the costs of ignoring work-life balance can be severe. On the benefits side, prioritizing and maintaining work-life balance can dramatically improve your mental and physical wellbeing, improve performance at work, and increase overall happiness and fulfillment.
Tried-and-True Tips to Improve Work-Life Balance
Below, you’ll find all the tried-and-true tips used by myself and others to not only achieve, but also maintain, work-life balance.
1. Prioritize Yourself and Your Health Over Your Job
As a chronic and recovering people-pleaser, I know it can be challenging to put yourself first. I’ve often felt guilty when taking PTO or sick days (even though I followed all processes and had no reason to feel this way), wondered about my projects when I was off the clock, or just didn’t take the time off because I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone. Trust me – this is the fast track to burnout, health issues, mental struggles, and unhappiness in general.
Practice putting yourself first. Take PTO guilt-free when you want it. Take sick days when you aren’t feeling well. Put that project on pause so that you can eat lunch. Notice when you are tempted to put the job first, and remember that YOU come first. Your body and mind will thank you. Your family and friends will thank you. Your boss will thank you. And you’ll thank yourself. When you take care of yourself, you feel great physically and mentally, you are able to be there for others, and your performance at your job increases. It’s a win-win situation for everyone!
2. Maintain Work and Personal Schedules
Before we dive into this section, I should confess that I am a planner. I prefer organized schedules because without them, my life feels like a chaotic mess, and I would never get anything done. However, if you are one of those awesome people who is able to manage their time and life without planners, then you can skip this section! If not, then welcome to my fellow planners. You’ll enjoy this tip.
Instead of relying only on my work calendar, I have two calendars. My work calendar, which keeps my work time and meetings organized, and my personal calendar, which keeps my dentist appointments, birthday parties, and any other personal life events that I want to remember. No matter how tempting it is, never mix the two calendars! I mean, you can, but it allows work time to creep into personal time, which is what we’re trying to avoid.
3. Find a Job that You are Good At and (Mostly) Enjoy
While this tip might not seem that important for work-life balance, it’s actually the one that helped me the most when I wanted to create a more balanced lifestyle.
If you have a job that you do not enjoy, chances are you spend a good amount of your personal time dreading when you need to clock in. Then you clock in, do the job, clock out, and think about how much you did not enjoy your workday. Maybe you have a couple coworkers who also do not enjoy their jobs, and then you all get together for dinner to talk about how you can’t stand work. Soon enough, too much of your free time is spent thinking, talking about, and dreading work. This happened all too often when I was in a position that did not suit me.
However, once I switched to a career that I enjoyed with a supportive working environment, I no longer spent any personal time thinking about work. Today, all my personal time is spent on my family, friends, hobbies, and non-work activities. Now, do you have to have an unending love for what you do career-wise? I don’t think so; I think you just have to find it somewhat interesting and enjoyable so that your workdays are fulfilling and you don’t spend any time dreading Monday mornings.
4. Establish Your Personal Time Boundaries and Work Hours
Some companies are really great about maintaining work hours and personal time. Others are not so great and want the lines between personal and professional time to blur. Personally, I like nice, clean lines that are clearly stated in a contract or HR policy. Ensure that you have clear times set for your personal time and work time, and that your hours are enforceable by contract or some other legally binding document.
During my personal time, I turn off Slack, close my computer, never check work emails, and ensure that I only do work activities when I’m on the clock. I do know a few people who allow their work time to blur into their personal time just a bit (wrapping up a project on Saturday if they struggled to focus on Friday, or sending off one last email an hour or so after clocking out), but they only do this for special circumstances. They are also extremely careful in these circumstances because they want to ensure that they aren’t violating company policies or developing a repeating pattern of working off the clock.
5. Take Your Vacations and Use Your PTO
Take your vacations! That’s pretty much all I have to say for this tip. Use every bit of PTO you have; it’s so important for your overall wellbeing and happiness. Even if you have “unlimited” PTO, never feel guilty for using your PTO and ensure you are actually using it on a regular basis.
6. Have (or Find) Hobbies and Interests Outside of Work
Sometimes, it can be difficult to take your mind off work. That’s what hobbies are for! Whether you like baking, crocheting, extreme dirt biking, water polo, or pickleball, your hobbies are so important for a balanced personal life. And if you aren’t quite sure what hobbies you like, all you need to do is test them out until you find one you enjoy! You can find inspiration from friends, coworkers, local groups (bookclubs, pickleball groups, etc.), and even social media.
7. Connect with Loved Ones and Other People Outside the Office
Nothing comes close to providing happiness, connection, and joy like our loved ones. Family, friends, fellow hobbyists, and other people in your circle add even more joy to your days. While I don’t typically hang out with coworkers outside the office (to avoid talking about work), sometimes coworkers are able to find common interests outside of their jobs, and so you can add them to your friend group as well. During your personal time, set aside some hours to share with the people you love. It sounds simple, but it really goes a long way towards supporting a balanced and healthy life.
Closing Thoughts
And there you have it, all my tried-and-true tips for balancing your career with your personal life! If you have any additional tips you would like to share with me or our community, feel free to post them down below, I’d love to see them!
FAQs
When you’re interviewing for a new position, one of the best ways to ensure a company supports work-life balance is to see how they set up working hours/schedules and if they provide any benefits to support employees outside of the office. Usually, professionals can find all this information in the position’s job description, employee reviews about the company, and by reaching out to current employees on LinkedIn to learn about their lives at the company.
While there aren’t any set-in-stone methods for measuring work-life balance, there are self assessments you can use to help you gain an idea of where you’re at, such as a self surveys, the Wheel of Life tool, and the Work-Life Balance Scale.
Can work-life balance help prevent burnout?
Absolutely! Work-life balance is one of the best ways to prevent burnout and support your mental, physical, and overall wellbeing. If you feel burnout creeping into your life, your work-life balance scale is probably tipped a little too far into your professional life, so it’s time to take the much-needed PTO and implement the work-life balance tips above.