Perfect Your Work-Life Balance: Chapter 1
Being self-employed can mean that it’s sometime hard to pull yourself away from either your work or your family. To give you a helping hand we’ve got 4 tips on how to perfect your work-life balance.
1. Work smarter, not harder.
If you’re spending over 10 hours a day in office but are struggling to meet project deadlines, you may not be working as efficiently as you can and you may end up burning yourself out.
Keep outside distractions to a minimum and save non-work related phone calls/messages for when you take a break. Ensure that you’re allowing yourself enough time for uninterrupted sleep at night. That email that you received at 2:15am? It can wait until 9am. In your email signature, include your office hours so that people will be aware not to expect a reply straight away.
2. Fika Breaks
Fika breaks are part of the Scandinavian lifestyle. Simply speaking it’s a coffee break however, this doesn’t mean going to your local café and grabbing a cappucino to go. Fika breaks mean giving yourself the time to really stop and keep your mind off of your workload for 15 minutes. Perhaps ask someone else in your office if they’d like to come down and enjoy a coffee with you; this will ensure that you’re less inclined to speak or think about work. In Scandinavian workplaces, these are often taken twice a day; once in the morning and then again in the afternoon. If you regularly schedule yourself an hour long break, perhaps split this into an half hour lunch break and two fika breaks. This will help you to feel refreshed when you return back to your workload and see it with a freshly caffeinated set of eyes.
3. Get into a Routine
Being able to pick and choose your own office hours can be a struggle. If you’re popping in and out throughout the day, it will be hard to calculate how much time you’re putting into your work against how much time is spent walking your dog or driving your children to swimming lessons. Try to give yourself fixed hours, whether it’s a standard 9-5 or an earlier shift like 6-2, bringing a routine into your work schedule will allow you to book appointments that won’t disrupt your workflow.
4. Spend your free time wisely
In order to stop yourself from being drawn into doing work when you have scheduled yourself the evening off, try to book your free time with hobbies, exercise or meeting friends/family. Not only will this allow you to allow your mind to escape from continuous thoughts about work but it will also improve your mental and physical health as well as help you rest and unwind.
