4 quick tips to help you achieve a healthy work-life balance

With so many distractions in our 24/7 society, having a better work-life balance may seem like an ambitious goal for some.

But finding your personal balance between work and life is very important to achieve your personal and professional goals. Therefore, it’s vital to take a step back every once in a while, and re-check your priorities. With that in mind, here are 4 quick tips to guide you to organise your time at work and outside the office.

Make a list of priorities

Getting your priorities straight is the first step in achieving a well-balanced life. This means figuring out what you want your priorities to be, not what you think they should be.

If you had to cut down your life and only focus on one thing, what would it be? Your family? Your career? A hobby? Come up with a list of the five things that are most important to you.

In an ideal world, you’d be able to devote all your time to the things that matter most. If some of your top five are being neglected, it could be time for a change in how you approach your life.

Increase productivity at work

Get closer to achieving a healthier work-life balance by making sure that while you’re at work, you’re performing at your best and don’t spend longer than you need to complete your tasks.

Think about how productive you are at work: do you experience regular interruptions that stop you from getting things done? What could you do to deal with them? Consider experimenting with options such as working remotely or turning your mobile or laptop off every once in a while.

This could help you to re-focus and lead to increased productivity at your workplace.

Remember to eat well and get regular exercise

Remember that having a healthy diet and getting regular exercise does wonders for your energy levels as well as your general health. Healthy eating can especially be a huge boost.

At the other extreme, working too much, feeling you’re under too much pressure and becoming stressed is bad for both your mental and physical health.

Learning to say no when you’re too tired or already overloaded is an important skill. Striking the right balance isn’t a one-off job and your needs may change as time goes on.

How to sleep well

In terms of achieving a healthy work-life balance, getting the right amount of sleep each night is a crucial step. Not getting enough sleep will impair your concentration, make you more irritable, and less able to cope with stress.

Try making a little ‘me time’ before falling to asleep. This can be reading a good book, doing some meditation or breathing exercises to relax you before bedtime.

Next steps

To find more tips or ways to improve the balance between work and life, visit our Wellbeing at Work article.