Ultimate Learning Guide To Improving Your Work-Life Balance

What exactly does work-life balance look like? Well, that’s where things can get a bit complicated. Work-life balance means something a little different to everyone. Over the years, the knowledge and approach of work-life balance has been constantly evolving, and it might be helpful for employers to identify the difference in opinions among the Baby Boomers, Generation X and Millennials.

According to Jeff Davidson you need to have time to breathe and have a sense of fulfillment at least during the majority of your every day, week and year. To achieve these, according to Jeff, we need to take care of our personal six components (or supporting disciplines) of work-life balance: self, time, stress, change, technology and leisure. Let’s discuss what they mean and how to go about them for a happy life.

Work/life balance is at best an elusive ideal and at worst a complete myth, today’s senior executives will tell you. But by making deliberate choices about which opportunities they’ll pursue and which they’ll decline, rather than simply reacting to emergencies, leaders can and do engage meaningfully with work, family, and community. They’ve discovered through hard experience that prospering in the senior ranks is a matter of carefully combining work and home so as not to lose themselves, their loved ones, or their foothold on success.

Work-life balance, says Nigel Marsh, is too important to be left in the hands of your employer. At TEDxSydney, Marsh lays out an ideal day balanced between family time, personal time and productivity — and offers some stirring encouragement to make it happen.

Life and work need not and should not be in opposition. When they are in harmony, both get better. But if you let the oppositional thinking of work vs life drive your thinking, it will impair your ability to progress from level 3 to level 5. Don’t let old assumptions determine how you live your life today. Think for yourself about what makes sense for you.

Work-life imbalance is perhaps the most vicious Silent Killer.  It does not affect only an individual, but also the organization one is working with; one’s family and the society at large. Its effects on an individual are manifested primarily in change in one’s temperament and negative impact on one’s health. The person gets tensed up and irritated on flimsy reasons; he may develop stress-related ailments like Hypertension and diabetes.

Instead of striving for the unrealistic goal of “work-life balance,” I use a combination of rituals, tools, and coping mechanisms that allows me to thrive on a day-to-day basis. Here are five daily practices I use to stay focused and balanced despite a jam-packed work schedule.

To achieve a good work-life balance you must ensure that you are goal setting to cover the three most important areas of your life. They must be in harmony with each other, not contradictory. Just as a wheel must be perfectly balanced to rotate smoothly, your life must be in balance as well for you to feel happy and effective. There are three types of different goals you must set in order to achieve personal development and balance.

In an age of 24/7 connectivity, achieving work-life balance is more challenging than ever. The development of good time management skills is an essential part of the workplaces of today and tomorrow. Here are some time-tested tips for managing your time.

Do you struggle with managing your time? When you adopt these time management strategies, you will be able to get more done in less time & improve your work-life balance.

The quality of who you are as a person, the relationships you have, the time you spend in work, deciding on what matters most is completely within your control. Here are 13 work life balance tips you can implement right now to start living a more stress free and joyful life.

With more people than ever before experiencing workplace stress, psychotherapist Jamie Patterson looks at various tactics for reducing anxiety levels and improving the work-life balance.

Everyone who has ever held a job has, at some point, felt the pressure of work-related stress. Any job can have stressful elements, even if you love what you do. In the short-term, you may experience pressure to meet a deadline or to fulfill a challenging obligation. But when work stress becomes chronic, it can be overwhelming — and harmful to both physical and emotional health.

When you exclusively work from home, physical boundaries between work and your personal life can feel virtually nonexistent. Even if you’re organized, it can still be difficult to successfully manage your career and a household in the same space, especially if you’re raising a family, too. While it may not be possible for home-based business owners and workers to completely draw the line between personal and professional, there are ways to better integrate the different facets of your life.

Employer programs like the flexible workplace, designed to promote work-life balance, are no longer time-limited exceptions to the traditional notion of working “9-to-5.” Work-life balance programs have gained acceptance as a component of strategic planning and management; use of such programs promotes employee engagement, productivity, and overall job satisfaction.

Companies that publicly advocate for policies that promote better work-life balance are no longer an anomaly, and this consideration is now essential for remaining competitive when acquiring and retaining talent. Any manager that’s hoping to improve the status quo at their company can consider the following five tactics.

The concept of work-life boundaries is simple. As it says in our employee handbook, we strive to be 100 percent present at work and 100 percent present at home. How a person pursues being 100 percent present at work and home is totally up to them. Ellen Kossek suggests you could set boundaries by being a separator, an integrato or a cycler. Each is a different style of boundary setting.

If you’re stuck in a position that gives you little control and you don’t have other prospects or options, the best tactic is to incorporate stress-busting activities like exercise, enrichment and meditation. Reducing your anxiety and focusing on what you accomplish outside of work will help minimize the lack of control you feel at work and shift your focus to other parts of your life.

Achieving a healthy work-life balance requires managing our professional and personal life in sustainable ways that keep our energy flowing, our minds and bodies healthy and our whole selves happy and content. It means giving due attention to all of the things that enrich and fulfill us including work and career, health and fitness, family and relationships, spirituality, community service, hobbies and passions, intellectual stimulation, rest and recreation.

The hard choices — what we most fear doing, asking, saying — are very often exactly what we need to do. How can we overcome self-paralysis and take action? Tim Ferriss encourages us to fully envision and write down our fears in detail, in a simple but powerful exercise he calls “fear-setting.” Learn more about how this practice can help you thrive in high-stress environments and separate what you can control from what you cannot.

Life patterns are constantly changing and evolving. In his TED Talk, Dan Thurmon explores how those patterns can be transcended by living off balance on purpose. Dan Thurmon is the author of two books, a renowned speaker, and a recognized expert in delivering peak performances — on stage and in the workplace.

Lead With Balance: How To Master Work-Life Balance in an Imbalanced Culture. In this book, university professor, speaker, and executive consultant Donnie Hutchinson addresses this issue head-on and explains how leaders, employees, and students can properly manage all the important facets of life. A balanced life leads to increased well-being, happiness, satisfaction, and productivity―a win-win for everyone.

Redefining Work-Life Balance: One-Minute Tools to Manage Stress, Achieve More & Enjoy Life Every Day. This book is about creating life-altering, positive results. These pages convey a way to deliver powerful results using simple, one-minute tools proven to enhance life balance and enjoyment. The outcome is reduced stress, increased achievement, and more joy every day – for the rest of your life.

Work-Life Brilliance: Tools to Break Stress and Create the Life and Health You Crave. In this book, author and executive coach Denise R. Green teaches you: How to reduce stress now, and for the long term, How to shift negative thoughts instantly and create a naturally more positive outlook, The truth about why you’ve failed to change habits in the past and how to trick your brain so you can change any habit for good.

The SuperWoman’s Guide to Super Fulfillment: Step-by-Step Strategies to Create Work-Life Balance. This is the essential quick-start guide to getting your life back on track. Filled with examples, tips, and tools that are realistic and easy to implement, nationally known mental health expert Dr. Jaime Kulaga shows you step-by-step how to: Identify your top life roles and prioritize what really matters, Say no and take care of yourself without feeling guilty, Create a plan to work through the barriers to your personal fulfillment.

Get Beyond Work-Life Balance. Through research and real-world examples from a variety of situations, you will learn strategies for managing workplace flexibility, and you will learn how you have the power as an individual, a team member, or a leader to make positive change. You will understand the value of a flexible work environment and see what sets successful flexible workers and managers apart.

Work-Life Balance for Entrepreneurs, The Complete Guide. In this course, we are going to give you everything we have learned and live—and we’re going to do it in a quick-and-easy format so even the most time-crunched business owner or household juggler can commit to themselves and create the balanced and fulfilling business they’ve always wanted.

Life Mastery – Happiness, Health & Success. Most courses cover either happiness in a vague way, or success from a purely money-focused angle, but this program combines BOTH into one simple route to achieve all your goals as a fully rounded person. It covers everything you need to do: from saying ‘No’, managing your time, getting promotions, choosing a career, keeping fit, self-talk, overcoming fear or guilt, and so so much more.

Stress Management: Avoid Burnout and Prevent Stress. Stress can impact every aspect of our life. This includes our productivity, our happiness, problem-solving, emotional and physical wellbeing, our relationships, and so on. Therefore, learning stress management techniques is essential to our overall success and wellbeing. In this course, you will learn practical stress management techniques to transform your life.