Creating better work and life balance provides us with an escape from the everyday grind of work.

Creating better work and life balance provides us with an escape from the everyday grind of work.

Balance. We all have heard the term and know what it means in a literal sense, but do we really know what it means when it applies to business? The real answer is work and life balance, with “life” referring to everything outside of work. Are we sure that our lives have sufficient balance in them in order for us to be effective at our jobs? What do we sacrifice in order to be effective in business? Are we sure that we understand what the consequences are of not having enough balance in our lives? Answering these questions and knowing the real definition of balance will allow us to become better managers not only of our day-to-day businesses but of our overall lives as well.

Recent trends point to workers looking for balance. In many cases it becomes a perk that workers look for. According to an article in Forbes magazine, a two-year-old survey by the Association of Executive Search Consultants found that 85% of recruiters have seen prospective employees reject jobs that did not include enough work and life balance, and most recruiters find that work and life balance is more important today than it was five years ago. Although times are tighter today, signs still point to the fact that this is an important consideration for all employees, and certainly, for those who are too entrenched in their jobs, it should be.

An important question to ask ourselves is whether balance is even an attainable goal within the context of our lives. If not, we need to make subtle changes not necessarily designed to give immediate balance to our lives, but to bring it to the stage where it becomes attainable. Once this is accomplished, a step-by-step plan to eventually attain balance can be implemented with the ultimate goal of creating an easier and more harmonious life. We have all heard the expression “work hard, play hard.” Although this can denote extreme behavior, it still suggests a semblance of balance between work and life. Balance allows for more clear thinking, and as was my premise in a previous article, permits us to be better work managers as we are able to look at our businesses from the outside in.

Better balance means less stress. As our businesses hit highs and lows, we all feel stress for different reasons. In low periods we worry whether there will be enough business to sustain our ongoing ventures. In high periods we fret about making deadlines and have trouble dealing with the frenetic pace of the business. Creating better work and life balance provides us with an escape from the everyday grind of work. The belief that we are better served by remaining inside our businesses for extreme periods of time is more counter-productive, as it leads to stale thinking caused by excessive tiredness. Having an environment that permits us to escape from work can lead to ideas that may not have appeared otherwise.

HOW IS THE BALANCE ACHIEVED?
A big problem fighting balance is modern technology and the fact that it becomes too easy to always be “connected.” It has only been a little over 15 years that email has been around in the format that we know it, and probably closer to 12 years that we began phasing it in to replace our traditional forms of communication. As a result, the world moves at a much faster pace. But does it have to? Do we really need to see every email the minute it comes in? One change I made in my life is to eliminate all email notifications on my mobile device.

I used to receive a beep or vibration every time I received an email. Of course, when this happened I felt compelled to look at it, and it became an unnecessary habit. Now I still carry a Blackberry ™ device, and yes, I look at my emails, but just not as obnoxiously frequently as I used to. By turning off any sounds associated with the receipt of emails, it has lessened my dependence on my device to the extent that I no longer feel compelled to answer every single email immediately, and find myself looking at emails in bunches during allotted times. I find that no less gets done, and I can spend time with family or in outside interests uninterrupted.

RECOGNIZE A LIFE OUT OF BALANCE
In order to know if our life is out of balance, we must recognize the symptoms. Do you allot appropriate down time to your life? Does down time really mean down time? Do you regularly miss holidays, family functions or evenings with the family to work? Are you constantly burned out or feel overwhelmed? Do you have strained relationships with family and/or friends; or worse—are you neglecting those relationships? If you can answer yes to any of the above questions, then you have the symptoms of a life that is out of balance, and you need to make changes to right yourself.

The first change to make involves better time management. When you are at work, make sure you work. Assume that your work day ends when you walk out the door, and this should be the rule, not the exception. Of course, there will be days when it will be unavoidable to do this to a certain extent, but try to minimize these exceptions.

Secondly, realize that no matter how hard you work, your inbox will never be completely empty. Prioritize, delegate and set boundaries for yourself. Make sure your workplace tasks are orderly and know that they will end at a certain time every day that you set for yourself. Most importantly, stick to this schedule. If you set 6PM as the time to go home and be with the family, make sure you have the proper time management during the day to make this happen. Don’t compromise here. Make it happen. The byproduct of this is that you will probably be more productive during the day knowing that the workday has a finite time period.

The bottom line of all of this is that the more balance we achieve in life, the healthier we become. We are happier, have less stress and become well-rounded. Who knows? Maybe we will even discover a few enjoyable things along the way that we never knew existed!