Category : achieving work life balance

Have you ever experienced those times wherein you’re too tired to do anything at all? Do you let the lazy bug get the best of you? Do you find yourself postponing things instead of doing them right away? Do you have the habit of telling yourself “I’ll do that tomorrow”? If you have, then welcome to the procrastinator’s club. President: Me.

I’ve always had trouble achieving work life balance. To me, it was impossible. You had to give up something to attain achievement on the other but little did I know that I was doing something very wrong. I was delaying my tasks both personally and professionally. I was slowly building my own nightmare. By delaying tasks, I was creating an enormous pile of things to do – all of which have tight deadlines.

If there’s one time management skill I needed, it was the ability to end procrastination. I needed to stop doing things the next day when I can work on it right here, right now. I needed to have a new perspective and a new approach to my tasks. I needed discipline and a great reminder of what I should do to improve productivity.

Doing things right away entails a great deal of discipline especially when laziness lurks in every corner. You need to be focused on what you want to happen so you can do things that will actually help you attain those. Doing things right away also helps you with time management. If you’re able to end your tasks way before the deadline, you have ample time for other things.  Getting things done right then and there is one of the best time management techniques out there. It definitely saves you time.

Sometimes the bigger things can be accomplished by taking small, easy steps. Sometimes, you don’t need a thorough analysis of the entire situation just to figure out what’s wrong. The simple things often save us from bigger catastrophes. It can even help us in our time management skills.

Instead of going through numerous time management trainings, you only need to make a habit of five simple steps. Once you get used to it, everything else will fall into place.

1. Get enough sleep. That doesn’t necessarily mean longer hours in deep slumber but rather, the quality of your sleep. You need to be relaxed and not stressed to fully optimize your sleep.

2. To avoid wasting precious time, always have a to-do list. This tells you exactly what you need to do first thing when you get to the office.

3. Clean your work stations or areas. A messy desk can never help improve productivity. Clutters and mess everywhere can add to more distractions. Instead of concentrating, you end up distracted, irate and unproductive.

4. No matter how busy you are, do not forget to take your lunch breaks. We all need a time out from all office works to unwind and clear our mind. It’s also a way to retrieve and refresh our creative juices.

5. You need to spend quality time on all aspects of our lives. Our lives are composed of seven vital areas which are: family, health, spiritual, intellectual, financial, social and professional. Each one of these areas requires our attention in order to achieve a proper work life balance. They are all connected and inter-related which is why it is essential that we take good care of them.

By following the above-mentioned steps, achieving time management doesn’t seem so difficult anymore.

There are so many things that hinder us from achieving work life balance. There are so many factors that sometimes make it impossible. However, companies must understand that it is important for employees to meet their personal obligations so they can improve productivity at work. If an employee has no problems at home, it follows that he/she will have no problems in the office resulting to a better performance. For this to be possible, here are some of the needs of employees that must be met so they can continue to give excellent service.

Flexibility – This is probably the most important thing for employees nowadays. They want to know that they have some type of control in how they do things. They want to be creative in doing their tasks. They want to be given the freedom on how to go about things. It’s all in personal time management.

Workload stress and productivity – Employers must value their employees and they must not put too much pressure especially if those are unnecessary pressure. Employees don’t want to work in an environment that focuses on stress instead of productivity. Employers must encourage time management for them to finish all tasks in their normal work schedules. This will also help them maintain work life balance.

Health care - Companies must value their employee’s health and well being. If an employee is healthy and well, he/she will be able to do more at work. Employees want to work in an environment that can offer them health benefits.

These are only some of the issues that companies are dealing with to be able to bring in employees of the new generation.

In our efforts to attain work life balance, there are a couple of setbacks that will hold us down. Despite the advices that are strewn all over the net, there are still some things that are hard to overcome.

• Client Attitudes are Unpredictable

Even if you’ve mastered time management techniques that let you finish tasks faster, you can’t just drop your clients right away. There are clients who are feisty and easily ticked off if you aren’t available when they need you. When this happens, you end up losing your clients. People who highly depend on this for a living can’t afford that because they need to provide for their families. You don’t have to sacrifice your family time just to be available to your clients but you can come up with creative ways on how you can juggle the two.

• Trial and Error

The world of business is like a science project. You have to study and test things out. Otherwise, you won’t really have an idea if it’ll work or not. This is essential especially if you’re only starting out. Money doesn’t come in just like that; you have to look for strategies to improve productivity.

• Freelance Jobs don’t wait for you or anybody else

In the highly competitive world of technology, freelance jobs come and go as fast as you change clothes. It doesn’t wait for anyone. If there’s a job that you’re eyeing on, you better dive at the opportunity rather than wait. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got things going on at the moment, let out your time management skills and you’re good to go. It’s not advisable to have two jobs at one time but if you really need it and if you can do it, then why not?

There are a lot of things to consider in achieving work life balance but as long as you stick to the goal which is to always put your family first, you won’t have any problems.