Veena
Last Updated on July 19, 2024 by Team Experts
Work-life balance – how do you get the chaos under control and avoid flopping down on the couch every night exhausted? Discover five golden tips on how to be more effective for a better work-life balance.
Chaos, Mess, & No Balance!
Balance is the answer to many of our problems. Mountain goats are good at it; we are less so. We strive for it, but we never seem to get there.
You want to be successful at work and experience happiness at work, you want to keep your household in order, eat healthy, exercise enough, maintain your social bonds, support your children and your partner, meditate, do personal development and occasionally have time for yourself.
And that doesn’t work. Because life moves too fast and your time is slipping through your fingers. Meanwhile, you feel too tired to exercise or even start your hobby.
Let’s see how we can turn this around.
1. You Only Have One Life
There is no ‘work life’ or ‘private life. There is simply your life.
Work-life balance is usually about the lack of free time. Or about the lack of energy to use that scarce free time in a meaningful way.
Your life is a series of events. Regardless of where you are and what you do. Every moment is what it is; there is nothing more.
So, the trick is to get better at life. To see your life as a whole and divide your energy, organize your time smarter, enjoy it better and recharge it more effectively.
Let’s see how you do that.
“The work-life balance does not exist in this life! Either you work, or you live; there is no balance!”
___ Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Meta Platforms
2. Balance Is Not Achieved – Balance Is a Skill!
Balancing on a narrow beam is a skill. There is no time when you are simply in balance. You have to keep balancing continuously. You correct yourself every second.
And you guessed it: that’s how it works with work-life balance.
· The better you are at balancing, the closer you stay to the ideal balance.
· You have to continuously correct to stay in balance. But if you correct too vigorously, you’ll skip too far to the other side, causing you to experience severe ups and downs.
· The stronger your ups and downs, the less balance you experience. You experience periods of immense bliss and periods of intense stress and chaos.
· If you are a real pro at balancing, you will always stay close to the ideal situation. Even if life pushes you. We call this resilience. You are so good at balancing that you even stand on that beam when it shakes to its foundations.
Where do you start if you want to learn to balance better in life? With your energy. The more energy and zest for life you have, the easier it is to stay in balance.
3. Do Less – Become a Project Minimalist!
The more you try to do, the harder it becomes to find work-life balance.
Think of it this way: you walk like a circus clown juggling over a narrow beam. The more projects and commitments you have, the more balls you have to keep up.
Juggling 1-3 balls is no problem. But if there are more, then the chance that things will go wrong increases.
· You’ll be more likely to drop balls, forcing you to step off the bar to pick things up. As a result, you get very out of balance.
· If you do manage to keep the balls high, this will cost you a lot of energy. Imagine balancing as you juggle ten balls. That is the top sport. You have to focus intensely, which makes you constantly tense.
It is possible to keep the balance while you have a lot of projects and obligations. But that’s a skill you have to train. If you find yourself often feeling overwhelmed, it’s important that you make the challenge a little easier. So that you enter a competition that you can win.
· Do less. Do the things that really contribute to your happiness in life. Don’t do the rest!
· Work on your perfectionism. Your child doesn’t have to hand out the most fabulous treat at school. You don’t always have to be the best at the office. And you don’t have to attend every social event.
· Make your life less complicated. Look for ways to save time and remove complexity. For example, delete unnecessary steps from your work process, automate tasks, enlist help, etc.
The fewer balls you keep in the air, the easier it is to maintain work-life balance.
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