Creating work-life balance and blending it into your life is an ongoing and persistent process. It will never stop. You will constantly learn and adapt as your interests, and situations change over time. So, let this run be filled with fun. Don’t forget to revisit your priorities now and then to see what is or has changed. You must keep track of your preferences and continue to line up how you spend your time and energy.

7 Tips For A Healthy Work-Life Balance

1. Learn To Say NO

Learning ‘when to say NO’ is the hardest aptitude to master. Be it at work or be it at home. After knowing to say no, putting this into practice is even more challenging. It is critical to set the proper boundaries. To begin with, one must foremost evaluate the specific needs of your day and learn, then articulate and prioritise what you have to do or complete.

2. Breaks

A 30-second micro-break can improve concentration, make work feel satisfying, keep one engaged and relieve stress. It’s essential to be mindful of this even when working from home. Surprisingly, especially since the pandemic, stress levels at work went sky high because people at home forgot to take appropriate breaks. And as the point says, it helps reduce stress, one of the leading causes of many work-related silent killers of the working professional.

Use your lunch break wisely. If you have a lunch break, you have the right to use it. Taking a coffee or lunch break to replenish your stamina, recharge your mind and rejuvenate your spirit to get work done is nonpassable. I am sure no boss will appreciate you suffering from ulcers, gastritis, or acidity because a report was due at 3 pm.

3. Schedule Family Time

Block out time that’s dedicated altogether to your family. For this to work, everyone in your family must have to make this period a prerogative. Make sure everyone in your family is on the same page for this to happen. It would be best if you collectively decided to carve this time out. And better yet, no external interruptions.

4. Prioritise Health

Lose your health; you lose much more than you can imagine. It is of prime importance that you begin maintaining your physical health, emotional well-being, and mental fitness to function well. Ignoring your health can hamper your work-life balance. Low concentration at work can lead to overtime or poorly accomplished tasks. In turn, it can impact your interactions at work. Carried back home, this becomes a potential cesspool of festering anger that can burn people around you with scathing anger. To make health a priority, build simple and supportive actions into your day. Habit stacking, a pattern or routine introduced in our life, can make waves in our work-life balance – daily workouts, journaling, meditation, getting connected, and plenty more. Use time wisely and give importance to self-care for a healthy you.

5. Practice Self-Compassion

Letting go of perfectionism is one of the most important ways to achieve a sense of work-life balance. The approach of perfectionism does nothing but bring stress. Moreover, it causes anxiety to accumulate over time. The strain and emotional stress press so hard on our well-being that we begin to crumble as our commitments increase.

6. Set Boundaries To Truly Unplug

Set and communicate your work hours clearly to your colleagues and customers to have clear boundaries. Include information on when you’ll work and when you won’t be available to respond. Many of us wear pseudo badges of honour; thinking overtime and working through weekends is commendable. In reality, this is nothing but a show of incompetence. And the lack of being able to have a life outside of work.

7. Invest In Relationships

An exciting study by Harvard Health Publishing found out the absence of strong relationships increased the chance of an early demise from all causes by 50%. That’s approximately as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Yikes, right? Who knew that seclusion was a silent killer? Conversely, excellent and well-grounded connections and social support systems can improve health and increase longevity.

Ensure even after your work schedules and deadlines and meetings, you will make time for your well being, friends, family and all that matters to you. It is true we will never find time for anything, we will have to put effort to find time, to do what we want to do. Enjoy a little and enjoy a lot, life is short and make every second worth it.

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