As you begin a new week, approach the middle of the year, it is important to pause and ask yourself, “How am I living? Am I living or working too hard to live?”
For many, there is a real struggle to create and maintain boundaries between work and personal life.
Many in the working class find themselves under pressure to show loyalty by on more roles more than they can deliver effectively execute, always being available in the futile hope to be seen as indispensable only for it all to come crashing down one day.
Many young people, recovering from major health scares after pushing themselves beyond their body’s endurance, regret the amount of time they gave to their companies. Wondering how it all went wrong.
It starts with small decisions. It can be all too easy to find yourself checking work emails on your day off, receiving work related phone calls and solving office issues out of office hours.
Failure to separate your work life and personal life might seem innocuous at first. However, over time, it can lead to disastrous results, including poor mental and physical health. You also could find yourself overworked due to your inability to mentally check out of work. What was once an active and thriving personal life has now made way for work, work, and more work.
To help avoid these issues, I share solutions I am working through to take my personal life back.
First find ways of helping yourself.
Create a cut off time for office related phone calls
It can be difficult to stand up for yourself and make everyone understand that you are available at certain times or on your day offs and that you owe no one an explanation for not accepting work related phone calls, or replying to texts or emails outside of your working hours, if you are worried about losing your job, however you have to be willing to respectfully set your record and choice straight.
I stopped picking phone calls and replying to text messages and emails during my personal life because it was affecting my family life to be constantly on phone or laptop.
My children were also noticing that I would every once in while, get stressed and agitated by some of the agitating work related issues I had to answer to.
Try to 'work smart, not long'
This involves prioritising - allowing yourself a certain amount of time per task - and trying not to get caught up in less productive activities such as unstructured meetings.
Work-related stress can seriously affect your mental health so keep track of your working hours over weeks or months rather than days. This will give you a better picture of your work-life balance. Factor in hours spent worrying or thinking about work, too – they’re a good indicator of work-related stress. If possible, assess your work-life balance with your colleagues and management staff. The more visible the process, the more likely it is to have an effect.
The workplace should also be in position to understand that they can play a role in not exploiting the availability of other workers but work towards helping their employees create a healthy balance for their workers inorder to get the best out of them.
Here is how
- encourage a culture of openness so you can speak up if you’re under too much pressure
- train managers to spot stress and poor work-life balance
- offer flexible and remote working where possible
- regularly review your workload to make sure it’s achievable
- allow you to attend counselling and support services during working hours as they would for other medical appointments
- ask employees what would improve their work-life balance
