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How to Achieve a Healthy Work-Life Balance

We are often so consumed with our work that we lose focus on what is important in life, from making sure that we spend time doing the things we enjoy or spending time with family.

Life moves at a very fast pace, and if your head is constantly buried in your work and career you will often miss a lot of the important things, and one day you may look back on those missed opportunities with regret.

We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to perform at the highest level and be successful, and that is still obtainable without fully disconnecting from the rest of the world. The key is to figure out how to achieve a healthy work-life balance.

In this article we want to help you figure out just that — how to thrive in your work and career, while also being happy outside of the office. Here are some simple tips to help you achieve that goal.

Leave Your Work at Work

The worst thing you can do is to bring your work home with you, especially anything that causes stress or will pull your focus away from your family or personal responsibilities.

When you understand and come to grips with the fact that you cannot “work” 24/7, you will learn to leave work at the office, no matter how stressful it is or how much more of it you have on the table.

What you leave at the office will be waiting for you as soon as you return the next day. It can take time time to get into this habit, but once you do it will instantly contribute to a healthier home life.

Understand You Have to Disconnect

This is one thing that can be hard for many to give into, especially those that are self employed. Startup culture at one time got to a point where it almost made people feel guilty for taking time off or for not working on the weekends.

Lisa Rush of Staff Outsourcing, a customer service outsourcing company, sees a positive trend. “Its no longer looked down upon as it once was. If an entrepreneur wanted to take a day off or go on a vacation, they would be looked at as slackers. It’s crazy to think that is how it was, and not that long ago, either.”

Disable Your Mobile Email on the Weekends

Your work can consumer you every minute of the day if you let it and technology is to blame. As Henk Schipper of Jaloezieen Fabriek suggests, “Disabling your email notifications on the weekend foces you to disconnect form work, because you aren’t constantly reminded of it.”

Years go, when someone left the office they didn’t have mobile communication. They didn’t get nonstop notifications and alerts. They saw new emails when they got to the office in the morning.

When you don’t have a constant beeping and vibrating, you can focus on the other things that matter. Something as simple as flipping the notification bar to the “off” position makes a huge difference.

Have a Family-First Way of Thinking

We hear it so often, but it’s something that we also need to be constantly reminded, and that is family needs to come before everything. When you commit to always put family first, you will see yourself make better choices that have a positive impact on your work-life balance.

If that means grabbing your check in luggage and booking a trip, do it. If it means hitting your child’s game after school, arrange your schedule accordingly.

Finding the balance is not easy, but once you do, it improves all aspects on your life, bother personal and professional. It’s worth the effort to always work on improving that balance.