To perform well at work and achieve career goals, pay due attention to personal life, counsels Prof. VGT.
Every individual at some point in his career experiences an imbalance between their professional and personal lives. In most cases, work yanks away the time meant for your loved ones. If you allow this to continue, the quality of your life deteriorates. The feeling of guilt slowly transforms your general temperament; your approach to life changes and that reflects on your work and success.
Maintaining work-life balance is necessary because imbalance wreaks chaos in life. Increased pressure on one side will affect the other side too. After all, the two cannot be completely disconnected! So the moment you notice that you are not able to balance between them, you have to take corrective measures. The first step towards this is finding the cause for the imbalance.
Some of the potential causes are – you are genuinely overloaded with work, you are incompetent, your time management skills are poor or you chase conflicting goals. Once you identify the problem, you should admit it and work towards overcoming it.
All this will take some time. However, while focusing on dealing with the specific cause, there are certain practices, which can help you reduce the time to get back on track and prevent trying situations from getting worse. They are:
FOLLOW AN ACTION PLAN: When you are better organized, your efficiency increases. So when you are assigned new or additional tasks, revisit your daily schedule and action plan. Make a list of activities and prioritize them. This should be done on daily, weekly and monthly basis.
SHOW YOU CARE: When your organization is going through a change, there is a crisis or you are vying for a promotion, it can be inevitable to spend more time at work. So explore alternative ways to show your loved ones that you care. Simple gestures like asking them how they spent the day, calling once during the day, helping them with their activities (when you are at home), and buying presents can do the magic. The point here is to assure your family and friends that you will not ‘forget’ or ‘ignore’ them even though you are busy.
When you are with your family and friends, make the most of the time. Do not think about work at least during the ‘special’ time you allotted for them.
– Prof. VGT
LEAVE WORK AT OFFICE: When you are with your family and friends, make the most of the time. Do not think about work at least during the ‘special’ time you allotted for them. Similarly, do not carry your personal problems to work. Avoid being away from office for long time and spending working hours on personal phone call.
NEGOTIATE WITH EMPLOYER: When excess work is disrupting your personal life, negotiate with your employers on options like work from home and flexible time. Make sure that the arrangement of working late every day and on weekends does not continue for a long time.
TAKE CARE: Pay attention to your health. Sleep well. Spend time on activities that can help beat fatigue. Allot time for physical exercises, yoga or sports. When you are already overworked, this idea may see ridiculous. But, it actually helps you stay healthy, happy and positive in stressful periods.
There are no standard rules for achieving work-life balance. More than achieving it, maintaining it is difficult. So be conscious about your state of mind and time you are spending on each aspect of your life. If there is deviation explore ways to deal with it.
