5 Realistic Tips for Better Work/Life Balance
It seems like everyone is on a mission for better work/life balance. And I get it — as a recovering workaholic, I know that it can be tough in our work-focused culture to turn that off and be fully present in our personal lives.
But what if I told you that work/life balance is kind of a scam and instead you should focus on creating work/life alignment? 👀
Keep reading to learn what I mean by work/life alignment and 5 tips to help you achieve it!
So what is work/life balance?
Work/life balance is tough to define because I don’t think it accurately depicts what we’re truly after.
Lemme explain.
Balance means that things are perfectly yoked right? An even distribution. That will hardly ever happen in our lives…where all the parts are exactly evenly distributed. Sometimes your family is going to require more of your time and energy. Sometimes your work is going to require more of your time and energy. This is why instead of striving for work/life balance and always feeling like I'm failing at it, I like to focus on living in alignment. Living in alignment means that your life flows well and makes sense for the season that you’re in. Life is harmonious, ya know? Dictionary.com tells us that alignment means: a position of agreement or alliance.
So being in alignment means that your life is going in the direction you want it to go, feeling how you want it to feel, and lined up with morals and values that you have established as important to you. I want my life to feel: peaceful, purposeful, and joyful. So I make sure that my days, whether I’m working or doing personal stuff, point back to those words. Everything, at its core, starts with our mindset.
When we call it “living in alignment” instead of work/life balance - we are less likely to feel like we are failing or doing something wrong.
We can just make shifts and tweaks along the way and we’ll be doing so from a place of grace instead of from a place of guilt or shame. When we spend so much effort mentally trying to separate work and life, we put this weird pressure on ourselves to show up in a very specific, almost confining way. When I made a mindset switch to instead focus on how I want my life to feel overall, it really released me from feeling like I was “doing it wrong.”
Now, before I give you the juicy work/life balance aka living in alignment tips, I want to talk about seasons. Seasons are part of life. You are going to walk through different things during different times in your life and it’s important to learn how to navigate and honor each season well. It’s unrealistic to think that you are going to be popping out of bed each and every morning for the rest of your life and feeling perfectly aligned in all areas of your life all the time.
Maybe you have a newborn and right now, most of your time and energy is geared toward keeping that little babe fed, changed, rested, and yourself fed, changed, and rested. Your energy and capacity for getting a promotion at work are probably not top of mind in this season.
Maybe you’re a teacher and it’s back-to-school season and most of your time and energy is geared toward setting yourself up for a peacefully productive school year. Your energy and capacity for making it to every social event for your personal life might not be doable in this season.
Basically what I’m saying is you can’t expect yourself to have the same capacity for every area of life during every season of life…that is so unrealistic! Whatever season that you’re in - Recognize it. Honor it. Commit to it. And make sure that you have a plan so that you don’t live there forever. That’s the thing with seasons, they don’t last forever.
Your life is going to look different depending on your season which means it’s probably going to feel different too. This is where alignment comes in - what do you need in this season and how can you get that? Being aware of your season empowers you to navigate it well. Embrace what season you’re in right now and know that you won’t be in it forever.
So what it comes down to is figuring out what you mean when you say you want work/life balance. Explicitly define what that looks and feels like for you. Because it’s going to look different for everybody. I freaking love what I do and up until 2021, I was working 50-60 hour weeks because that’s what I wanted in that season of my life of building a business. I wasn’t sacrificing my mental health or the important relationships in my life so everything checked out. Now, I’m obviously entering into a new season ~ motherhood ~ and I don’t want to work that much anymore so I’m making shifts that support me living in alignment for this season of my life.
Maybe you’re a recovering workaholic like me and you really are seeking some concrete tips to help you live in better alignment and not have your life be so work-centric if you will. Well you know, we’re all about the practical and realistic action steps on this show so I’m not gonna leave you hanging. I’ve got 5 tips to help you with living in alignment…and these tips will be especially helpful if you tend to operate mainly as a work-focused person.
01. Follow work hours and take regular time off
I know this can sound easier said than done but it is possible. I will say from experience, it takes practice. When I first set work hours for myself as an entrepreneur, it was an adjustment to follow them because I was so used to just working during any free time that I had so I felt like I was being “lazy” or “irresponsible” if I was just relaxing. Y’all know that now my mindset is WAY different and I’m all about operating from a place of rest because it makes me a better me and helps me do better quality work when I am working. When we have scheduled work hours, it helps us be present with what we’re doing. When it’s time to work, we can focus on work, guilt-free, and when it’s personal time, we can focus on personal things, guilt-free.
Before I had work hours in place, I would just wake up every day and kinda just go to town ticking things off of my work catch-all task list and before I knew it, it would be 10 PM and I’d still be responding to emails or working on making a digital planner. I love what I do…that’s not a secret, but even doing something that you love too much can lead to burnout. Now, I have set work days and set work hours so that I know when it’s time to work and when it’s time to do other life things. Obviously, as an entrepreneur, I have to follow through with my work hours and scheduled time off – I can’t just say I’m gonna do it and then not or it’s pointless.
Let me give you some tips for following work hours and taking regular time off as a 9-5er.
9-5: Know what your contracted work hours are per your company. And realize that if you choose to work outside of those hours, you are donating your time. Aka you’re working for free.
Listen, I am all about hard work and being an employee who does things with excellence but working for free is not the vibe. You deserve to be compensated for your work. You’ve got enough work to do at home that you’re not being paid to do, lol. Working a 9-5 is nice in this sense because you kind of have your built in work hours and days off. But let me just say if you work a 9-5, please take your paid time off! I was reading a statistic and a 2019 article from the U.S. Travel Association said that Americans left 768 million days of paid time off unused in 2018. The study found that 55 percent of Americans did not use all of their paid vacation time. EXCUSE ME, WHAT? You are expected to take that time off…it is YOUR TIME, given to you by the company that you work for. Why would you not use it? If you work a 9-5, stick to your contracted work hours (and let your boss know that is a boundary you have) and enjoy your weekends and PTO for yourself and your family.
Tune into this week’s podcast episode to hear tips on taking regular time off!
02. Be clear on your work role
This goes along with number 1 – just like you need to be clear on what your work hours are, you need to be clear on what your role is at work. What are your expected responsibilities? Knowing what is and what isn’t up to you, positions you to do your best work and I don’t know about you, but when I’m doing my best work, I’m less stressed out about work, and when I’m less stressed out about work, it’s not lingering over my thoughts when it’s my personal time.
When you work a 9-5, your role tends to be a little more clear-cut. If you aren’t clear on what does or doesn’t fall under your list of responsibilities, ask your supervisor. I bet they’d appreciate the directness over you harboring resentment over trying to juggle multiple roles when that really isn’t your job. When you get clear on your work role, you’re able to create and communicate boundaries based on it, which helps prevent burnout and overwhelm at work.
Defining your role at work as an entrepreneur can be a little less clear-cut, especially if you’re in the beginning stages of your entrepreneur journey. As entrepreneurs, a lot of the time we are the stand-in head of marketing, accounting, product development, customer service, content creator, and the list goes on. Trust me, I get it.
A few things that have helped me be clear on my work role as an entrepreneur:
Working from a weekly batch schedule and a daily time blocking schedule
I talked about batching and time blocking in detail in last week’s podcast episode so I won’t go on about them again, but for batching, I pick a focus for each of the days and do tasks that relate to that focus on that day. Right now my weekly batch schedule looks like this:
Monday: Product Development
Tuesday: Content Creation and Calls
Wednesday: Product Development
Thursday: Coaching and Calls
Now, there are some things you have to do daily in your business to keep things running, right? Like you can’t answer customer service emails one day a week and expect to have returning customers. This is where time blocking comes in. I schedule certain things into each day, no matter what my focus for the day is.
These 2 things for me right now are: 01. Answering emails, DMs, and messages from my team, and 02. Engaging in the Hustle Sanely BFF FB group. Having these things scheduled, every day makes sure that they get done without them lingering over me all day, stealing energy from my batch tasks. This is where time blocking comes in. I schedule an hour each day to work on these things in my business – it’s usually 30 minutes first thing when I start work and 30 minutes when I’m ending work.
Planning my business by the quarter
This keeps me from getting shiny object syndrome and jumping from project to project or weaving in new projects even though my plate is already full. In my Create Your Peacefully Productive Schedule course, there is a bonus module in there showing you how I plan a year in my business and a quarter in my business and it’s really helpful to keep me from feeling spread too thin.
Hiring a team
Now, this is not something that I did right away as an entrepreneur but when you are at the stage in your business when you can do this, DO IT. Delegating tasks that don’t need to be done by me to other people freed me up to be able to focus on things that are in my zone of genius – like creating planning products, courses, and podcast episodes.
03. Participate in a hobby outside of work
Having a hobby or 2 outside of work helps you detach from work mentally and it reminds you that there is more to life than just work.
Listen, your hobby does not need to be deep or earth-shattering. I used to think that my hobbies needed to be incredibly purposeful or world-changing but here’s the thing, a hobby is meant to bring you joy, that’s it. Hobbies allow us to tap into our inner child and make play a regular thing in our lives which is so important and something that we tend to neglect as adults.
Some of my hobbies outside of work are:
⋒ Reading fiction novels
⋒ Playing pickleball with friends
⋒ Going paddleboarding with my husband
⋒ Playing games with Adam and our friends
If you don’t know what your hobby is or what you want it to be, that’s okay! You can explore and try stuff…that’s so much fun! Take a cooking class, try baking a new recipe you find on Pinterest, join an adult kickball league, buy a watercolor set and watch a Youtube video teaching you how to do it, start a garden, do some DIY projects around your house. The sky is the limit. You won’t know if you like something unless you try it. Hobbies aren't meant to be pressure-filled so don’t let them be. Give yourself permission to try a variety of things without having to stick with them or turn them into side hustles (I’m looking at you, fellow enneagram 3s, lol). Oh, and the cherry on top, practicing a hobby is a super solid way to healthily manage your stress levels, too!
04. Keep your personal and professional catch-all task lists separate
I’ve found that keeping my work and personal catch all-task lists separate helps me better stick to my set work hours. Because if I’m not working, but I’m doing some personal things and I peek over at my catch-all task list, I’m tempted to dip into work tasks when I see them mixed in with personal to-dos.
Maybe this is just a mental thing for me personally, but even if I can see the professional task list, as long as it’s separated from the personal one, I’m not tempted to pick at it. This is why in our 2023 planners, we have a personal and professional task list for every quarter and for every month.
Now, when I’m creating my weekly and daily plans, I do mesh everything together so I can have a bird’s eye view of what my week and days look like as a whole. I’m just saying, that keeping my work and personal catch-all task lists is helpful for me. And on that note, here’s a little bonus tip – having a separate email address for work and personal stuff has also been a game changer for me. I keep my personal email on my phone and laptop but my work email is only on my laptop – this also helps me not to dip into work stuff when it’s my personal time.
05. Have a transition task to switch from work mode to home mode
Sometime last year, I found that I was having a really tough time transitioning from work mode to personal mode when it was time to clock out. I would stop working for the day and sit down to start dinner with Adam and my mind would still be racing with work things.
So I decided to introduce a transition task that helped me….well, transition, hence the name, (lol) from work to home brain. Now, this looks like 2 tasks for me: the first one is my last work task of the day, which is planning out the following day. My brain knows that when I am filling out my planner for the next day, we are entering into work mode coming to a close for the day. Then after I do that, I leave my home office, close the door (this also triggers my brain to know work is over) and I either go on a walk if it’s not too hot or I read a fiction book for 10-20 minutes.
Doing something that engages my mind in something not work-related, acts like a ramp to help me “merge” into home brain mode, if that makes sense.
Some other ideas for transition tasks could be:
⋒ Doing a guided meditation
⋒ Watering your garden
⋒ Watching a Youtube video
⋒ Stretching
⋒ Going to the gym
These 5 tips have really helped me live in alignment over the last 2 years as I’ve shed my workaholic tendencies.
The Recap:
01. Follow work hours and take regular time off.
02. Be clear on your work role.
03. Participate in a hobby outside of work.
04. Keep your personal and professional catch-all task lists separate.
05. Have a transition task to switch from work mode to home mode.
Work was always the top priority for me but weaving these tips into my life has really helped me retire from my workaholic tendencies and embrace and enjoy life more. It finally feels like a part of my life now, rather than all of my life like it used to. Which honestly has made me a better business owner so it’s a win/win.
Remember to try to view your life as a whole. As if your life was a pie chart, work is just one small piece of that pie…not the whole thing. And let me tell you, as a recovering workaholic, I used to view my work as the pie crust… I had to fit everything else into it!
Need help creating a schedule that supports your priorities?
If you found this blog post helpful and would like to listen to the full podcast episode, tune in below!
