Many of us work hard, but finding a balance between work and personal life is important. With the pressure and expectations from our careers, it can be difficult to achieve this. We often get the message that success requires sacrifice. A more realistic idea, however, is that success requires balance. If we can find a healthy balance between career and personal life, we’ll be more likely to sustain our productivity and be more present. We’ll also be less likely to burn ourselves out. It is important to realize that keeping your head in work mode around the clock does not make you better at what you do. It just makes you less present in your personal life and potentially less effective in your work. Practicing self-care and balance allows us to bring the best of ourselves to our work. Follow these tips to help you find more balance in your life and avoid burnout.
Leave the mental work you do for work at work
Be aware of how much and how often you spend time outside of work thinking about work and commit to setting a boundary to switch off. Be decisive about not thinking or talking about work once you are done. Consider what it pulls you to keep engaged with work when your workday has ended. A work culture that expects access to you outside of work hours or a career where the work doesn’t have clear endpoints or time frames can result in avoiding your own personal needs. Perhaps you believe that others in your workplace or those you work for can’t function without you. Reevaluate work relationships and tasks that are dependent solely on one person and cannot be delegated to others. Remember: it may not always be possible to switch off when your workday ends, but if you commit to a practice of establishing a boundary when it is possible to do so, you’ll be more present when you get back to work the next day. Check out our blog on slowing down your breathing to help you be more present in your life, manage your stress, and emotionally disconnect from work after hours:
Read more: Slow Down your Breathing to Feel More in Control
Keep boundary with work emails and messaging
Establish a practice of reading and responding to emails only within a reasonable time frame. For example, don’t open emails before 8 am or after 9 pm. Keep devices out of reach upon going to sleep or waking up. Notice any tendency to respond to emails immediately rather than reserving responses to a set work schedule. When a work email pops up at 11 pm, will you check it? Remember, if you’re checking your email on a day off, your work isn’t invading your personal life, you’re inviting it in.
Create and maintain organization and efficiency
Identify areas where your work practice could use organization and streamlining. In addition to keeping as much consistency in your schedule as possible, having an efficient and organized approach to your work will require less of your energy and allow you make the most of the time dedicated to work. Use the calendar or scheduling app on your device to keep track of all of your appointments and deadlines. Use alerts! There are endless free apps and resources to help you be more organized and efficient in your workflow. Avoid burnout by taking control of your work life and actively manage your time.
Treat your vacation time as sacred time
You’ve scheduled the time off, take the time off. Plan ahead for coverage. Set your “out of office” messages. Communicate your absence well ahead of time so others who may rely on your regular presence can make their own accommodations while you are away. Time away from work to rest and restore yourself allows you to put yourself first. Taking uninterrupted time off will keep you sustainable in your work.
These are just a few tips that can help you bring the best version of your professional self to your work and avoid burnout. Keeping effective boundaries between work and personal life, limiting others’ access to you during off hours, being organized and intentional, and taking time off are all essential parts of sustainability in your work and your career.
How do you to find balance in a busy work life and avoid burnout?
- Navigating Hesitation About Starting Therapy [Video] - August 27, 2020
- How to Adjust to the Changing Parent and Child Relationship - April 5, 2019
- Avoiding Burnout in Your Work Life - December 14, 2018
5 comments
Love this blog! I really appreciate your point about treating vacation as a sacred time because it’s really easy to be attached to your phone and get work emails even when you are away from work. I personally treat my time with friends as a sacred time as well and I make sure to actually enjoy my time with others and avoid responding to work emails.
This is such an important topic, Glenn! In these times, it is so easy to stay tethered to work at all hours and it takes a conscious effort to take the space from work that we all really need. When I find myself thinking about work a lot, I like to turn to my self care routines to help me shift my mind away from work. As you suggest, taking that time away always helps me to be better, not worse, at my job!
This is such a great blog post. Running a therapy practice, I can relate to the difficulty of stepping away from work, because there is always something I could be doing. Making time to go to the gym and stepping away from my email on the weekends helps me to maintain the balance I need to be there for my clients and staff. Thanks for writing on this important topic!
Great blog, Glenn! I really like your suggestion on email boundaries. For me, I often find it challenging to resist checking emails while off work. I plan to make this a strong boundary for the new year. I imagine that it will take some people time to adjust as I have always been a quick email responder. However, there is always an adjustment period when setting new boundaries. This is so helpful.
Thanks Glenn for these great reminders! I find it so important to always reasses my softening of boundaries with technology and my work with others. This reminds me to practice what I preach to my clients.