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41 Techniques to Improve Work-Life Balance

What’s work life balance? Does it really matter? Work-Life balance definition entails the ways in which a
professional manages their time outside work. This may include handling family responsibilities,
management of relationships, and hobbies among many others. Maintaining a perfect balance between
professional life and personal life deems to be a hard nut to crack. Professional life has become more
dynamic today as competition surges and schedules become tight and busier thus posing a danger to
both professional and personal life. However, all hope is not lost since as a professional, there is an array
of strategies and policies which can guide you to achieve an ultimate work life balance. Below are 41
techniques that will help you to improve your work-life balance:
1. Establish your own work-life balance definition
Work-life balance can be interpreted in different ways by different people. Some believes that
separating their personal life from their professional life is the best way of achieving their mental
stability. However, this might not work for you since you may need to blend between your personal and
professional life so as to attend to your family, for example, at the same time being at the top of your
professional career. This, therefore, means that you have to come up with your own work to life balance
strategies which perfectly works for you. By understanding this, you will definitely choose what suits you
and improve your work-life balance in the long run.
2. Have a strong willpower
A strong willpower from within you is an essential for great achievements. Willpower enables you to
avoid possible temptations at any given time. For example, without a self-generated willpower you
might be tempted to check on an email from work amidst dinner with your family. That can be
disgusting right? You can, therefore, progressively build your willpower by beginning with basics such as
having a healthy meals or even making your bed regularly. These basic activities will strengthen your
willpower and with time you will achieve the perfect work-life balance.
3. Avoid multi-tasking
Doing different duties that have a clear variation can be termed as multi-tasking. Some people feels that
the ability to multi-task is priceless but fails to consider the negative implications of multi-tasking. By
multi-tasking, your productivity is always reduced by a significant margin and thus make you work for
unusually long hours to complete a given project. It is, therefore, prudent to avoid any distractions, such
as laundry, from sneaking into your working hours. This is, however, not a limit as you can always be
free to address any tasks that are urgent or necessary when taking a break.
4. Have a schedule
When running multiple errands, it can be depressing without a schedule. This is because you may feel
isolated and thus slowly lead to depression which in turn reduces your productivity. It is, therefore, very
important to set a clear and simple schedule that allows for casual and productive breaks between
activities. By sticking to your schedule, you will be able to attend to your professional work and still have
time for your family or personal life thus a great work-life balance.
5. Learn prioritization
The skill to prioritize tends to be tricky sometimes especially if you are a detail oriented person. This
skills entails knowing what, when, and where to do something. By having a good mastery of the
prioritization skill, you will undoubtedly improve your work-life balance.
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6. Be organized
Lack of organization can make something simple to seem hard and unmanageable. On the other hand,
being a bit organized can make an enormous difference in your bid to improve your work-life balance.
Organization entails having a plan for your day and not working blindly. Working blindly can make you
work for unexpectedly long hours and make you forget your personal life which is equally important.
7. Make your schedule public
Friends, family, colleagues, and even employers can be disruptive sometimes. This can derail your bid to
achieve a perfect work-life balance. It is thus important to make your schedule public so that you do not
get work notifications when you are enjoying your personal or family life and vice versa. This can be
achieved by using tools such as Google calendar that automatically declines any event invitations or
work notifications during off-hours. By doing this, you will improve your work-life balance a great deal.
8. Set boundaries and adhere to them
As discussed above, it is important to generate willpower from within so as to avoid temptations.
Willpower can, however, be depleted and thus setting and strictly adhering to boundaries can help to
save the situation. When it is time to leave work, let it be time to leave and if possible block any work-
related notifications. You should also let your colleague know your boundaries and avoid succumbing to
continuous stress and communication. In this way, you will be able to improve your work-life balance
and even make it as perfect as possible.
9. Socialize
Apart from having a professional life it is important to always understand that you also have a personal
and social life. Failing to adhere to your social needs can deem to pose adverse danger to your physical
and mental health. this will in turn affect your professional life and make you less productive. You
should, therefore, not be ashamed of paying attention to your social life but learn to prioritize as it can
be dangerous.
10. Communicate intentionally
It is very hard to determine when your colleague is overwhelmed with work especially when working
away from office. Therefore, if you need to make any communications, you need to be considerate and
only send urgent messages that deserve to be sent. Apart from that, you should also shy from expecting
immediate responses. By mastering this art of urgent and intentional communication, you will have a
perfect work-life balance.
11. Let other people know your communication preferences
Some people value their personal work space and prefer written communication whereas other people
feel motivated to work in an environment surrounded by people and prefers verbal communication. You
should let your colleagues or team know what you prefer and thus respect your decisions and avoiding
infringing your working space if need be. Through this, you will be able to get a perfect working
environment as well as personal life. this will also make you to easily draw a line between your
professional and personal life.
12. Have both short-term and long-term goals
When making up objectives, you should ensure that they are reasonable and achievable so that you can
easily adhere to them. These will guide you to know what you need to achieve in a given timeline. By
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having an objective, you can easily know what to do and when thus easily find out what’s work life
balance.
13. Employ time-blocking
Time-blocking is a strategy that helps you to focus on a given thing at a given time and thus make sure
that you are on-task. This will thus help you to manage your activities and time allocation thus easily
improve your work-life balance.
14. Have the courage to say ‘No’
Some people tend to struggle to always be assertive and thus may find it hard to say no to their friends,
family or colleagues. Having the courage to say ‘no’ is a skill that you have to learn in order to find an
easy time turning down activities which are inappropriate at a given time. This will help you to balance
your activities and thus improve on your work-life balance.
15. Be self-disciplined
Self-discipline is the ability to know what to do at a given time and restrain from anything inappropriate.
This can be hard to master but it is essential to maintain your sanity and wellbeing. This value will also
help you to allocate time for your professional and personal life thus improve your work-life balance.
16. Be kind to yourself
When you have myriads of activities and people around you, you can easily forget about yourself. Loving
yourself is very important as it will give you an easy time to love and be kind to others. It will also make
you feel worthy and thus avoid stressing yourself with work and give value to your personal life too.
17. Be flexible
Confining yourself to one specific routine can make it difficult for you to have a work-life balance. This,
therefore, means that you should be able to take care of urgent duties such as checking on a family
member who is not feeling well despite being at work.
18. Try out remote work
Remote work allows you to work from home and not necessarily go to the office. This can be challenging
without self-discipline but can also be industrious if executed in the right manner. Remote working will
allow you to easily blend your professional life into your personal life and thus easily find the work-life
balance.
19. Work on your strengths
This mainly entails understanding yourself in the best way possible. It is important for you to understand
that you cannot be everybody else and thus major on your strengths. This will enable you to focus on
what you can do better and thus be more productive. This will in turn give you the peace to also explore
your personal life thus a perfect work-life.
20. Invest in technology
Today’s world is being driven by technology. It is thus prudent to blend in and embrace technology as it
can help you save a lot of precious time. For example, you do not have to drive miles for a meeting
which you can have it online, for example, via Zoom or Skype. The time saved can then be used to care
for other personal engagements or even having fun with friends and family.
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21. Follow your passion

Lack of passion is one of the leading causes of stress at work which may lead to depression if not
controlled. It is important to know what you like as it will give you an easy time doing it. Stress at work
at many instances have dire consequences, both directly and indirectly, to your friends and family.
22. Take a holiday
Holidays are the best if you want to relax, be away from work, and have fun with either friends or family
or even just be alone. You will, however, have to inform your colleagues or clients beforehand so that
you can have a perfect time away from work and any other distressing circumstances. By having
holidays regularly, it will help you to ha a work-life balance a great deal.
23. Know your limits
Everyone have their own breaking point. It is, therefore, important to know what yours is and thus try as
much as possible to focus on your capabilities. In this way, you will easily figure out what you can do
from what you cannot and thus easily know when to focus on your professional or personal life. by
understanding your capabilities, you will never mix the two but instead have a perfect work-life balance.
24. Be sincere with yourself
You can fail to achieve a work-life balance if you are not realistic. It is important to perform a self-
evaluation from time to time in order to know what works out and what does not. This will also enable
you to be realistic and thus always think about your professional and personal life in everything you do.
In this way, you will be able to find the balance between the two with ease.
25. Know your troughs and peaks
What time are you most productive? It is important to understand the time and conditions that make
you as productive as possible and thus work on the complex projects at this time. This will help avoid
unnecessary stress as you know what to do and when to do it.
26. Have a personal career/life coach
Having a professional who you can open up to is very important. It is, therefore, necessary to get a life
coach if need be who will always be there for you and listen to any issues that you may have. This will
enable you to have an inner peace and thus get help on ways you can improve your work-life balance
under your own specific conditions.
27. Value your network
Having special people around you can be priceless. It is important to nurture and lead your network so
as to have people you can trust to understand and help you when you are in need. This will make it
easier for you to let them know about your schedule and thus have a humble time for your professional
duties.
28. Take breaks
Work with no play made Jack a dull boy. It is important to take a break from draining duties to enjoy
your personal life. This, however, should only be done when need be as it can turn to be disastrous and
affect either your personal or professional life. doing it right will help you improve your work-life
balance a great deal.
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29. Set aside personal time

It is normal to have personal issues. However, it is not appropriate to cover up these issues with your
professional work. This is because you may lose the ‘me’ in you and even your family. And when this
happens, all will be lost. Therefore, having a personal time will help you sort out issues and thus improve
your work-life balance.
30. Prioritize your time
Time is a precious commodity that can never be retrieved once lost. If you have many tasks to
accomplish in a given time, it is important to categorize them in terms of urgency and importance. This
will help you to prioritize the time taken to do these tasks and thus avoid using time set aside for
personal life doing your professional work. By having a to-do list you can easily know when to do each
task and thus improve your work-life balance.
31. Have specific work hours and adhere to them
Many people find themselves working up to wee hours every night just because they have not set aside
working hours or they do not adhere to the set working hours. Doing this can be frustrating, especially
to your immediate family, as they might feel that you do not have time for them or you do not care
about them at all. Apart from having a negative impact on others, this can even harm you as it can set in
depression that can trigger other mental problems. Setting and adhering to working hours can save you
from these and help you improve your work-life balance.
32. Exercise regularly
Doing exercise regularly is everyone’s dream. However, actualizing this dream and maintaining your
regularity is where the test sets in. As much as you value your profession and the money you make, it is
important to also value exercise. Exercise makes you healthy and thus be in the best state of mind
possible. This in turn will give you the power to concentrate on your work as much as possible thus
become more productive and even finish your duties on time to care for other personal responsibilities.
33. Let work be work!
Rest is one of the requirements of a healthy and productive human being. After work, it is assumed that
you have had enough of tussle at work and all you need is rest. It is, therefore, wrong to check your
work email or have unnecessary work-related conversations with tour colleagues. All you need to do is
let work be work and find your work-life balance.
34. Acknowledge that you are different
Never compare your work-life balance to that of another person. Some people enjoying working for long
hours as they may not have much personal issues to take care of. One cap never fits all. It is a matter of
understanding the orientation of your personal and professional life. once you get this right, you will be
able to set your priorities right and thus improve your work-life balance.
35. Focus on your productivity and not working hours
Instead of struggling to work for long hours, it is better to strive to accomplish a given task instead. This
is because some project may never be completed at a go but needs time so as to be professional enough
and of good quality. On the other hand, some tasks will only need a few hours to complete. It is thus
important to focus on the quality of work done and not the number of hours worked.
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36. Review your workload regularly

It is important to check your workload from time to time to ensure that you are no overworked. This will
also help you to manage your time well and thus have a great work-life balance.
37. Consider taking an off from work
Taking a time off from work is a time to get relieved and forget about any work related stress. This time
is also valuable in the sense that it allows you to think of your life and make changes where there is
need to. It makes you are of your personal life that might have been covered up by your professional
life.
38. Have a morning routine not related to work
When you wake up, it is important to have a routine which makes you busy before preparing for work.
This routine can involve meditation, reading a novel or even doing some exercise. This make you to
always put your safety and health first before everything else, even your career. In this way you will
definitely improve your work-life balance.
39. Avoid working during lunch breaks
One of the greatest mistakes done by many people is eating their lunch from their offices. This gives
them no breathing space out of work and thus feel overwhelmed to an extent of forgetting about their
personal life. it is important to have your lunch out of office with colleagues as you have casual chit
chats that are not necessarily related to work.
40. Know your worth
It is important to understand that you are much worthy than your job. You should, therefore, avoid
stressing yourself with too much work to an extent of losing your value. You can only be valued by
others if you value yourself and thus the need for a work-life balance.
41. Have after-work plans
One of the ways to not achieve your work-life balance is failing to plan. If it is time to get out of office
and you have no after-work plans, you may be tempted to keep on working. This may become a habit to
an extent of forgetting about yourself and thus loose the work-life balance.

References
1. https://www.sagepeople.com/about-us/news-hub/hr-support-better-work-life-balance-
workplace/#
2. https://www.fingerprintforsuccess.com/remote-work-life-balance
3. https://www.roche.com/careers/our-locations/asia/india/service/folder/
20_tips_for_maintain.htm
4. https://blog.protectedtrust.com/promoting-work-life-balance