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Why is it important to maintain a work-life balance?
A healthy balance between work and personal life reduces stress, prevents burnout, and promotes overall well-being. By balancing your work and personal life, you can dedicate more time to nurturing personal relationships that will make you happier, more content—and ready to start the work day.
This last factor is essential. When you let yourself relax and spend time with your family, you will return to work refreshed and more productive. This means that your work and personal life can improve in tandem, rather than at odds, with each other.
It can be hard to maintain a work-life balance in practice
That being said, achieving a work-life balance isn’t always easy. As a boutique recruitment company for finance institutions in the City of London, many of our candidates, either seeking or moving between high-flying jobs, struggle to set boundaries and prioritise their personal life. Long working hours and constant connectivity can leave you distracted and disengaged even when you’re trying to switch off.
Here are a few steps to manage and improve your work-life balance:
1. Reflect on your current needs
Evaluate the areas of your life that receive the most attention. Do you need to make adjustments? Think about your work, relationships, health, and personal interests. Analyse how time is spent each day to identify imbalances.
2. Stop feeling guilty
A common reaction is feeling guilty about prioritising your personal needs, fearing it will negatively impact your professional image. You are doing yourself a disfavour by stopping yourself from resting! We all need to reset to produce our best work.
3. Set clear boundaries
Establish specific work hours, dedicate time blocks for personal activities, and avoid excessive overtime whenever possible. The best way to do this is to give yourself a personal and professional schedule. This will help you see both areas of your life equally. Allocate time for specific activities, including work, personal commitments, exercise, hobbies, and relaxation, to ensure your schedule is well-rounded.
Of course, boundaries might sometimes be challenging to establish in strict work environments. Still, if you are swamped, something has to give. We suggest evaluating requests or additional work demands based on their alignment with your professional goals. You should feel able to express your limitations—if not, we recommend taking this up with your supervisor.
4. Prioritise and delegate tasks
Identify and focus on high-priority tasks that align with personal and professional goals. Delegate the tasks that others could handle at work and at home to create time for the activities that make you feel happy. We recommend using an action-priority matrix to determine where to focus your efforts and where to let go.
5. Make use of technology
Technology is typically the culprit of a work-life imbalance, and yet we can use it to our advantage:
- Too much of our time at work involves organising our day-to-day. Productivity apps can help you prioritise work, and many will let you set reminders to ensure your meet your deadlines.
- The pandemic has given rise to a new form of hybrid working that isn’t likely to go away. Remote work options can help you regain control over your personal and professional schedules – and reduce commuting time.
- Wellness is essential to your health and happiness. Apps offering meditation and stress reduction techniques can relax your body and mind, making you capable of taking on the workday.
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