ML Coaching
Today's world is constantly changing. Thanks to new technologies, we can order food or things from home at any time, and even work from home. But all these advantages also come with some downsides.
Being reachable all the time can be very stressful. For example, someone from work can contact us at any moment and ask for help — even though it's technically already after hours. That's exactly why it's hugely important that we make an effort to maintain a good work-life balance.
If we don't have a healthy balance between work life and personal life, it can seriously affect our health. Too much work means more stress, and more stress means a higher heart rate as well as higher blood pressure. In the long run, this can increase the risk of a stroke.
In this article I want to give you a few tips on how to build a better work-life balance. With this advice, I want to show you that it's not too hard to create a good balance between work and free time.
Quickly, a bit about me: my name is Marco Laterza and I'm a personal trainer from Zurich. I offer my clients support in sport, nutrition and mindset. A holistic approach to health and fitness matters to me, and it's a concept I want to pass on to everyone. If you're interested in working together, feel free to get in touch anytime.
Tip #1: The right time management!
People often have to work overtime and stay in the office late in the evening because apparently too many tasks are piling up and all of them need to get done. But this problem can be solved with well-thought-out time management. What does this mean?
1. Organising your work
Well, first of all, it can be very useful to create a to-do list. On a list like this, you write down all the tasks you need to complete either that day or that week. If you write this list at the start of the week, you no longer have to keep every task in your head. This lets you focus fully on your work and boosts your productivity.
But this list still doesn't distinguish between important/unimportant and urgent/non-urgent tasks. Here I'd like to introduce you to the concept of the Eisenhower Matrix. Once you've created your task list, you can then build yourself a grid with four fields. Here you sort the tasks by whether they're urgent or not, and important or not.
Once you've done this, you should proceed as follows:
- Important / Urgent: You should do these tasks immediately.
- Important / Not urgent: Set yourself a clear deadline for completing this task.
- Unimportant / Urgent: Do this task yourself, or delegate it if possible.
- Unimportant / Not urgent: You should drop this task, since it only takes time away from the tasks that really matter.
Now you already have a better plan of which tasks you need to tackle first and where your focus should be. But that's not all. Because good time management doesn't just mean prioritising tasks — it also means organising your work time itself.
2. Organising your time
Here, for example, there's the Pomodoro technique. The principle behind it is very simple: you divide your workday into time blocks. You work continuously for 25 minutes. During this time, you put your phone away and focus completely on the work. Afterwards there's a 5-minute break, during which you can have a drink or quickly check your messages. This is meant to keep your concentration at a good level throughout the day. If you can use this technique in your work, you should definitely consider it.
Tip #2: Say no!
Time management isn't the only way we can take the load and stress off our working day and achieve a better work-life balance. It's also important that we learn to say "no" more often. Because how often does it happen that colleagues or supervisors ask us to take on tasks we simply don't have time for anymore? And yet we take the work on anyway, simply because we can't say "no."
Saying "no" isn't actually that hard, as long as we can also justify it well. You could, for example, offer to find someone else who can take over this task. In any case, you should be clear that if you always take on work, it becomes harder and harder to focus on the tasks that really matter.
Tip #3: A good balance!
With remote work and working from home, it's becoming harder and harder to define a clear start and end time for the workday. People often start early in the morning, take a longer break in between, and then keep working in the afternoon. Or they've already finished their work by the morning, but still have to attend meetings or check emails in the evening.
That's exactly why it's very advisable, for a good work-life balance, to set a clear boundary between work and free time. Set yourself a defined time window during which you work, for example from 9am to 5pm. Stick to it as closely as possible. Of course, it's not the end of the world if you sometimes stay a bit past 5pm. It's also fine to quickly answer an email in the evening once in a while. At the same time, though, you should always ask yourself: is this email really so important that I have to answer it today? Many things can wait until tomorrow and aren't as urgent as we might think.
Tip #4: Address problems!
Often people have too much stress at work because the employer is causing it. Unrealistic deadlines or spontaneous, time-consuming tasks can completely throw off the workday and force many people to stay in the office longer than necessary. This throws work-life balance completely out of whack.
Ideally, you should discuss these problems with your employer. In many cases, the boss isn't even aware that there's a problem with deadlines for tasks, for example. Talking about problems can help find solutions for them.
Tip #5: More movement!
For a better work-life balance, you should also make sure you spend your free time productively. Even if you have a demanding job and just want to collapse on the couch after work, you should make sure you at least get some movement in. Sport is good for your body and your mind for a whole range of reasons. Combined with good nutrition, this gives you more energy, including for your working day. And you don't need to go running or hit the gym for two or three hours in the evening — even half an hour is already very good.