It feels like modern adulting wasn’t made for mere mortals. Work hard! Go out with your friends! Family night! Daily exercise! Recycle! Hydrate! DIY home repair! Volunteer! Self-care! And don’t forget to work hard!
A lot of people can’t even talk about maintaining work life balance because that would imply they have a balance to maintain.
We’ve got you, superhero. We know you’re doing your best. Now let’s get you balanced so your days feel less like, “Aah! Stress!” and more like “Ahh, yes.”
WHAT IS ‘WORK LIFE BALANCE’ ANYWAY?
Work life balance is a state of equilibrium where you can meet the demands of both your job and your personal life without feeling stretched to the point you’re about to snap.
When you’re balanced, you can focus on the moment without intrusive thoughts of all the things you’re not doing peering over your shoulder like a nosy neighbour.
When that balance is off, it’s hard to concentrate. It seems no matter how hard you try, you’ll never get everything done and you’re always letting someone down.
Reality check: you don’t need a way to fit more into your day. You need to recalibrate what’s already there.
MAINTAINING WORK LIFE BALANCE MATTERS
More than 1 in 10 people work 50+ hours a week. As work weeks get longer and the line between work and personal life gets fuzzier, maybe we should review why work-life balance is more than a “nice to have.”
It’s important to your health. When you struggle to meet all the demands on your time, you get stressed. Long term, people who don’t maintain work-life balance are at higher risk of burnout, heart disease and stroke.
It’s important to your relationships. Even the most understanding family and friends won’t live on the back burner forever. It’s easy to take relationships for granted and assume the people we love will always be there. Until they’re not.
It’s important to your career. When your work and personal life are in balance, you’re more relaxed. That translates to greater innovation, creativity and productivity. Work-life balance makes you better at your job.
HOW TO MAINTAIN WORK LIFE BALANCE
Stop trying to divide your day mathematically.
Hot take 🔥: maintaining work life balance doesn’t necessarily mean working less. It means setting boundaries and honouring priorities.
Work life balance isn’t really a scale, it’s a seesaw. So sorting each hour of the day into a “work” or “personal” pile won’t help you. Sometimes work requires more focus and energy and sometimes your personal life takes center stage.
You can work long hours as long as you have the flexibility to also meet your personal needs. That said, there is a point at which hours and productivity part ways - and that point is 50 hours a week.
After 50 hours, your productivity drops. After 55 hours, it flatlines. Researchers compared the productivity of people who worked 55 hours a week to that of people who worked 70 and found both groups accomplished the same amount of work.
Moral of the story: all your effort won’t accomplish anything if you’re running on fumes. Rather than worrying about how many hours you spend at work, with your family or on your hobbies, examine whether that time is fruitful. If not, it’s time to shift something.
Take responsibility for your time.
Feeling crushed under the weight of everyone’s demands? Take a deep breath and confront the person responsible. You’ll find them in the mirror.
Your life is only as hectic as you allow it to be. Maintaining work life balance means setting boundaries and saying “no” to demands that fall outside them.
If work creeps into your free time, block it out. Literally. Set blocks on your calendar for the things that fill your cup of joy. Merge your work and personal calendars so you can see all your commitments at a glance and you’re not tempted to double-book your time.
(If you share your work calendar, you can always set personal tasks to “private.”)
It might feel weird to put “take a walk,” “dinner with spouse” or “family game night” in your calendar. Do it anyway. Reserve that time and set a reminder. Make commitments to your well-being as non-negotiable as commitments to your biggest client.
SET PRIORITIES
Sit down and make a list of what’s important to both your work and personal life. Question what you write there.
Why is this a priority?
Does it enhance your life?
Does it move you closer to a meaningful goal?
Or is it just something you feel like you’re “supposed” to want?
The things that stir the strongest emotional response are your top priorities. Maintaining work life balance means meeting those demands first.
Once you have your priorities set and ranked, create actionable goals related to them. Saying your friends are a priority is one thing. Setting a goal to have dinner with a friend at least twice a month is another.
Enlist your executive assistant to help you create an action plan. Your EA will help you honour your priorities with achievable daily and weekly tasks and will follow up to keep you on track.
Here are some real goals Zembr EAs are helping their clients pursue right now:
Manage your time.
Meeting your priorities and checking tasks off your to-do list feels good. 😎 It can actually enhance your feeling of control over your life and reduce the effects of stress.
Break down goals into teeny-tiny steps. That’s what goes on your daily to-do list.
Implement a daily and weekly strikecard to track progress toward goals like leaving work on time, getting in a walk or meditating. Apps like Productive and Habitshare make it easy to stay on track. When you meet your goal for the week, give yourself a little reward like a new book or a fancy coffee.
Use a time tracker like Clockify or Tracking Time to see where your time is really going. It’s pretty easy to lose big chunks of time to things that don’t actually align with your goals.
Give your EA access to your calendar, to-do list and strikecard. They can help you prioritise your task list and take low-impact chores off your plate.
Make your EA your calendar guardian. Tell people who want to add something to your calendar to schedule it with your assistant. They’ll protect your time and make sure your goals don’t get derailed by a thousand distractions.
Create separation between work and personal time.
Work from home can be great for work life balance, freeing up time once lost to a commute. Unfortunately, it’s easy to slip from working at home into living at work, and then your balance goes all wonky.
Have a dedicated workspace. Whether you travel to the workplace or work from home, try to limit your work to one physical area. If you routinely work from your office, your kitchen table, your couch and your bed, it’s hard for your brain to anticipate whether it’s time to work or relax.
Establish an after-work routine. This can be anything that helps you make the mental switch from work to home. Try listening to music, meditating, working out, changing your clothes or calling a loved one for a chat.
Unplug. Let your colleagues know when they can reach you. Outside of those hours, turn off your phone. Don’t check your email. Turn off notifications. This goes the other way, too. To keep personal distractions from creeping into your workday, set boundaries with your loved ones. Let them know that during working hours, you’re only available if there’s an emergency.
Maintaining work-life balance is a cycle
We wish we could tell you that getting your work life and personal life in balance was a one-time exercise. We also wish we had an infinite chocolate box that never ran empty. Alas, neither is true.
Goals, priorities and circumstances change. This is why work life balance is more than just counting out work hours and personal hours. Maintaining a healthy balance takes regular self assessment to make sure your actions line up with what’s important at the time.
The outside perspective of an EA can be invaluable in helping you maintain that balance. When you’re caught up in the day-to-day, you might not realise you’ve shifted how you spend your time or that you’re neglecting your goals. Your EA can alert you to shifting patterns that indicate it’s time to review your priorities.
