With everyone working from home, it can be difficult to separate your work-life from your home-life. Even if you feel like a pro at working from home now, it’s likely you’re working more than you need to. This is especially true if you love your job or are working flat out to make sure everything runs smoothly during a tricky time.
Now that we’re well into the swing of Zoom calls, odd working hours, and a new way of working, it’s a good time to redefine your work-life balance. Whether you run a company with a distributed team, or are an employee working from home, there’s a lot of benefit in taking a step back and looking at your working day.
If you need a bit of inspiration, here are some tips to help you redefine your work-life balance during the pandemic.
Schedule in Your Breaks
Use your calendar to schedule in breaks like any other work-day meeting or activity. This will help you to avoid booking anything else during that time. Not only will no one else slot a meeting into your diary during that time but you'll have a reminder to get away from work for 5-10 minutes — something it’s easy to forget to do when you’re busy.
What your breaks look like is up to you. Perhaps schedule a five-minute break to make coffee after you’ve checked in with your staff or colleagues, or maybe set aside time for a longer break in the afternoon to stretch and get away from your desk. When you’re not in the office, it can be tough to get the same level of movement during the day. To talk to colleagues or head to meetings, we’d usually stand up and move around, at home this doesn’t happen.
Keep to Normal Working Hours
It's important that whatever routine you have in the office that you keep to it at home, too. It’s great to have flexibility in your day but take a step back to look at whether you’re working too much. If that’s the case, setting start and end times could really help. It's always tempting to get just one more thing done but when your working day runs into the evening, it can be bad for your health.
Don’t Book Back-to-Back Meetings
Instead of having one meeting or call after the other, give yourself 10 minutes between each. Not only does this give you a bit of flexibility if one runs over but it gives you time to prepare for the next call or maybe even take a short break. Use that time to step away from your desk.
Think About the Ideal Balance
This is a great time to think about what your ideal balance would look like? Are you happy with the amount of work you do? Would you prefer to automate some of your daily tasks to free up some of your time?
Consider what your ideal day would look like (pandemic or no pandemic). If you’d like to have more time to spend with your family or pursue a hobby, what can you put into place now to make that possible in the future?
This could be a great time to explore the tools and processes needed to get you closer to that ideal work-life balance. Automating repetitive tasks, delegating others, and using business insights to help inform your decisions are a good place to start.
Redefining your work-life balance might take some time but this is a fantastic time to do it. Not only will you improve your productivity in the process but you’ll also be able to find more enjoyment from both work and your free time.
