What Is Work-Life Balance? (And How To Improve It)

There are deadlines looming. Between the long hours you work in the office and the off-hours emails you respond to, you’re focusing most of your time on work, work, work.

If you want to succeed in your professional life and work your way to a higher position, you need to dedicate yourself to your job no matter the consequences, right? Well, you know what they say, “all work and no play…leads to stress and burnout.”

A work-life balance isn’t just a suggestion; it’s a necessity. Burnout will hinder your professional performance and decimate your morale. More than that, it can negatively impact your physical and mental health and damage your personal and familial relationships. In the simplest of terms: it’s no good.

Workplace stress, and the subsequent burnout, leads to higher work absences and poorer overall health. Finding your work-life balance not only benefits you, but your employer. It is not only desirable, but necessary to live a healthy life.

What Is Work-Life Balance?

Work-life balance is the delicate balance of priorities in your personal and professional lives. To achieve work-life balance, you must prioritize your work responsibilities and your personal obligations equally.

Both personal and professional responsibilities regularly vie for your attention. While your personal life may be more important to you, many prioritize work obligations over all else. It takes effort to find a balance. And, once you find it, you need to work to maintain that balance.

Why Is Work Life Balance Important?

Living an unbalanced life will not only do damage to your interpersonal relationships, it leads to high stress levels. The Mayo Clinic finds that chronic stress can lead to all kinds of unwanted health issues that carry with them their own consequences:

• Insomnia

• Increased risk of heart disease

• Weight gain

• Anxiety and depression

• Increased risk of chronic illness

In today’s world, it’s harder than ever to find that balance. The advancements in technology have made it so that you are never truly off work. Your phone keeps you a text, email, and notification away at all hours.

Work interrupts social outings, family dinners, your kids’ sports games and performances. It’s an ever-present thought at the back (or forefront) of your mind. That’s not healthy. In fact, the longer you remain unbalanced, the more it will impact your health.

Factors That Hurt Work-Life Balance

Living a stress-free life is impossible. But you need to find your happy medium — something much easier said than done. This can be especially difficult when there are circumstances beyond your control that are creating your work-life imbalance.

Things that lead to a negative work-life balance:

• Overbearing and unsupportive management. Your boss can be the difference between a happy work environment and a toxic one. According to their Mind the Workplace survey, Mental Health America found that over 70% of respondents had “unrealistic workload expectations.”

  If your boss is a micromanager or has a more aggressive way of managing their employees, it can add additional stress to you and your coworkers. Your boss’ expectations can often lead to your inability to “turn off” after work.

• Lack of accountability for employees. When some of your coworkers are lazy with their jobs, or just bad at them, and they’re not held accountable, it can lead to an imbalance in the workplace. You are often left to pick up their slack without benefit.

  According to that same Mind the Workplace survey, 83% of respondents felt that coworkers who did not do their jobs were not handled appropriately. Subsequently, 49% of respondents felt that skilled employees often went unrecognized.

• Overworking due to lack of security. It is unfortunate, but there are many, many workers who do not feel they have good job security. They worry endlessly about losing their job at any given moment.

  The Mind the Workplace survey found that 49% of respondents felt that they may be fired or let go at any time. Around 44% of people said they were afraid to go on vacation or take time-off because they were afraid they would lose their jobs or things might fall apart in their absence.

• Long work hours. If you’re working full time, that’s at least 40 hours per week dedicated to your job. But many companies expect you to dedicate even more than that. Staying late at the office, continuing to respond to work related emails off-hours, taking calls during your personal time – it all adds up.

  OECD (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development) found evidence that suggests that long work hours may impair personal health, jeopardize safety, and increase stress in their work-life balance study.

• Being a working parent. Everyone has responsibilities at work and at home, but those who have children at home have an especially difficult time. If you don’t work in a state that benefits working families, this can be even more difficult on working mothers and fathers.

• Long commute. A long commute to and from work can do just as much damage as long work hours. When you add the time you spend in your commute to the time you spend in the office, you don’t have much left over to spend with your family and friends.

  Not to mention the traffic. Traffic alone can cause additional stress for someone. If you’re spending obscene amounts of time behind the wheel and adding in bumper-to-bumper traffic one or both ways, that stress follows you to work and home.

How to Improve Your Work-Life Balance

Don’t let stress from work take over your life. If you continue to neglect yourself and your interpersonal relationships, everyone will suffer. Maintaining a healthy balance between your professional life and your home life is a necessity.

There will always be times where one side tips the balance over the other. It’s natural for there to be some give and take. Major life events, large projects, and changes in the home or workplace will upset the balance from time to time. As long as you work to balance everything to the best of your ability, you’ll find yourself happier and healthier.

Finding ways to maintain that balance can be difficult. If you’re struggling to find or maintain your work-life balance, consider the following:

• Put your health first. Your health should absolutely be a priority. Allowing work stress to negatively impact both your physical and your mental health is counterintuitive.

  The more you stress about work the worse your health will be. Your health will start to impact your work and you’ll begin to stress about both. It’s a vicious cycle that you can end before it begins.

  Prioritizing your health doesn’t necessarily mean taking drastic measures. Take sick days when you don’t feel well. Don’t neglect your mental health; see a therapist if you need to, do yoga or meditate if it helps you. Get enough exercise.

• Set boundaries and unplug. Do your best to leave work at work. This will help you to avoid burnout and allow you to take time for yourself and the people that matter to you.

  Set boundaries for yourself and make sure both you and your coworkers adhere to them:

  • Stop answering work-related communications once you pull in your driveway.

  • Stop thinking about that upcoming meeting or your current project once you leave the building.

  • Set timers for any notifications on your phone – if you receive the notifications, you are more likely to look and respond.

  • Make yourself completely unavailable during vacations and allow only limited availability during your time off.

• Practice self-care. Don’t put yourself last in your priorities. Your mental health will benefit from regular self-care. Many people feel guilt when they take time for themselves, but they shouldn’t.

  Everyone practices self-care differently. What works for some may not work for others. You should:

  • Maintain a healthy diet. Eating healthy helps you feel better and stay healthier.

  • Find ways that help you relax. Give your brain a break.

    • Listen to music

    • Read

    • Binge a show

    • Play video games

    • Hike

    • Meditate

    • Take a bath

    • [Insert whatever works for you]

  • Spend time with family and friends. Having a social life is an important part of maintaining your mental health.

• Take time-off. You get vacation time every year – take it. Even if you’re just going to stay at home and veg out for the day or week, take it. A staycation is still a much-needed break for you.

  Everyone needs time to recharge both physically and mentally. Taking time away from work can help you to refill your battery and stave off the burnout. Do your best not to worry about what will be waiting for you when you return. Leave work at work.

• Love your job. We know – this is much easier said than done. But if you hate your job, you’re never going to find that needed work-life balance.

  It may not be as simple as “make your passion your paycheck.” Still, staying in a job you don’t enjoy is draining. Whether it’s a toxic environment or you’re simply bored, take the time to put your priorities in order and make the decision that’s best for you. If it’s finding a new job, then do it.

• Set realistic expectations. Sometimes this means letting go of your perfectionism. You want to give your best. Your bosses deserve the sun, the moon, and all the stars from you and your work. Right?

  You can give your best without going overboard. Set realistic goals and expectations for yourself. Striving for perfection and pushing yourself to the edge is the fastest road to burnout city.

• Work/live somewhere with a good work-life balance. One of the top reasons people quit their jobs is to achieve a better work-life balance. There are companies that prioritize the mental well-being of their employees. You have to find what works for you.

  Some states and cities are better at providing that work-life balance than others. See if these top ten states or top ten cities in America are feasible for you. If they aren’t, don’t worry. Every state has top cities that provide a more balanced work-life relationship. Look at:

  • California

  • Massachusetts

  • Indiana

  • Illinois

  • Iowa

Finding Work-Life Balance When You Work From Home

Working remotely is becoming more and more common. Since COVID-19 forced everyone to work from home temporarily, some are finding they prefer it. Finding work-life balance can be even more difficult when you work at home.

With no physical separation between your work life and your personal life, finding that line becomes nearly impossible. There are ways to maintain a work-life balance even when you work from home:

• Keep a separate computer/phone for work and personal. This may seem like an added expense, but it can cut your health-related costs in the long run. If you use one computer or phone for everything, it is even harder to separate your professional life from your personal life.

  Keeping them separate allows you to…well, keep them separate. It adds a physical boundary where one didn’t exist.

• Set specific work hours and stick to them. If you’re working a traditional 9 to 5 from home, then this may already be done for you. Setting specific work hours allows you to separate your work time from your personal time. You are creating a boundary.

  Not only does setting hours help you to maintain a work-life balance, it also helps with your productivity during work hours. Instead of working when you can, you keep your mind in work mode during your set hours.

• Designate a work space. You are again setting a physical boundary where one did not exist. This will help you to separate work from personal as well as help with your productivity. Work only when you’re in your work space.

  Having a completely separate office makes this boundary easier to follow. If you work from your dining room table or a corner of your bedroom, it can be easier to slip into work mode when you should be focusing on your personal life. When possible, try to create a true physical boundary.

• Have a routine. Setting specific work hours is only part of having a daily work routine. Get up at the same time each day, shower, get dressed, eat your meals at the same time, etc. Having a daily routine that you stick to will help you to separate the work activities from the personal activities.

• Set aside break time. Giving yourself a break can be harder when you work from home. The temptation to just work through lunch or take your laptop with you when you leave your workspace is greater.

  Since there aren’t coworkers to socialize with, you won’t be taking the mini mental breaks that most office workers take either.

  Make sure that you’re setting aside time during your day to take a breather. Spend your lunch break eating and unwinding. Take a coffee break here and there. Scroll through social media for a few minutes. Do whatever you need to do to get that little bit of “me-time” in throughout each day.

Final Thoughts

We are all guilty of letting work take over. With today’s technology, it is all too easy to give little bits of your personal time back to work. Each tiny moment adds up until all you’re left with are your workaholic tendencies and damaged interpersonal relationships.

The work-life balance is difficult to find and maintain, but it is completely necessary. Don’t let work take over your life. It may seem like the most important thing right now; eventually, though, it will just be one of your many priorities.

Neither your personal life nor your professional life should take over completely. Find the balance and you’ll be all the happier for it.

Author

Samantha Goddiess

Samantha is a lifelong writer who has been writing professionally for the last six years. After graduating with honors from Greensboro College with a degree in English & Communications, she went on to find work as an in-house copywriter for several companies including Costume Supercenter, and Blueprint Education.