In this fast-paced world, people often focus on excelling in their professional lives, which can overshadow their personal lives. Thus, the ultimate goal for many is to balance both needs equally. The ultimate goal for many is to balance personal and professional needs. To achieve a healthy work-life balance, one must maintain an equilibrium between these responsibilities. It involves managing work effectively while also enjoying personal life, spending time with family, and pursuing hobbies. Prioritizing refers to scheduling activities or things based on their emergency and demand.
According to Clinical Psychologist Anwesha Bhattacharyya, “Work-life balance, as the name indicates, is a work of balance. Prioritizing things and maintaining work-life balance could be difficult but is possible to attain. The utmost priority for any individual should be their health. Even if someone wants to excel in their profession, they would have to take care of themselves. However, we live in an age of hustle culture in which compromising on our health and working day and night to reach a goal within a short period is encouraged and celebrated. But if you look around you, you will see that achievers who have been at the pinnacle of their area of work or industry have all led a balanced and disciplined life to ensure they can work optimally for a prolonged period.”
“To set your priorities, some things should be non-negotiable. Firstly, prioritize your sleep and diet. Maintaining 7 hours of sleep and three major meals a day should be non-negotiable. Apart from that, taking small breaks in between your work. Get up from your sitting position in your office or workstation walk about and do some stretching exercises. If you cannot afford separate time for physical exercises, drop off from your cab, bus, or mode of transport about a few kilometres away from your workplace or home and walk the rest of the distance.” Says Anwesha.
This article delves into the ways to prioritize things without messing up with work life.
Keeping a Balance
1. Prioritize things based on their value
Every person holds some values in their life. These values drive the person’s actions and decisions. So individuals have to reflect on their values such as family needs, health, meaning of life, and so on. To reflect on things you have to undergo a process called self-reflection which can be done by asking questions to yourself.
2. Plan and Prepare
Prioritizing things requires proper planning and preparation. So plan the things you have to do during the week and weekend. This keeps you organized with your work and also provides you with free time to spend with your family and pursue your hobbies. By planning, a person may avoid burnout, overwhelm, and stress.
3. Managing Work
If a person is flooded with work time he or she will not be able to spend time on other things. So it is crucial to have flexible work hours. having flexible work hours not only benefits you but also your organization. It helps boost productivity, reduce absenteeism, and enhance efficiency.
As per Anwesha, “Another priority should be taking care of your daily work stress. Engaging in breathing exercises, meditative practices, or grounding exercises of any sort could help with this. Taking a hot and cold shower at the end of a busy work day not only helps in maintaining hygiene but also relieves work stress. To maintain your work priorities, firstly maintain realistic targets. Do not overwhelm yourself with too many goals at once. Prioritize your goals based on time urgency and resources necessary. This will make prioritizing easy.”
4. Establish a Family time
Sometimes to excel in their career field people neglect or forget to accomplish family needs and demands. This leads to a lack of communication and conflict among family members. So, it is important to balance between Work-life and family demands which need proper planning and preparation. Incorporate the following planning strategies to strike a proper balance;
Create a family calendar that all members can access, detailing responsibilities, upcoming events, and activities for everyone. This helps everyone understand each other’s situations and support each other during challenging times. It also helps avoid conflicts and promotes better communication, coordination, and family bonding.
6. Help with meal Preparation
Engage in cooking with your partner. This fosters better relationships and communication between them and it also reduces their time, and stress, and promotes healthy eating habits in the family.
7. Create a Tech-free zone
Create a space or schedule a time that is free from any technological devices. In this time all the members of a family have to gather and spend time together by doing things like life-sharing goals, watching a movie, playing fun games, and so on. set time for your family. Where you can discuss your family’s growth, responsibilities, children’s education, upcoming events, etc.
8. Made a to-do list
A to-do list is an effective tool for prioritizing tasks. Creating one for the family helps organize responsibilities and provides a clear view of what needs to be done and how to do it. It also promotes time management, balance, flexibility, and accountability and reduces forgetting of an important event.
9. Self Care
Maintain a Relaxation Time. It may look like a simple act but it is highly beneficial. Creating a time to relax helps to reduce stress and burnout and promotes mindfulness, energy level, sleep, family relationships, and physical and mental health. Have time for self-care where you spend time on yourself to foster your physical and mental health. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, self-care helps with stress reduction, increased energy, and low levels of illness.
10. Seek Support
Don’t feel shy or afraid to reach out to people. Be reciprocal and share your challenges with your family or friends or with professionals. In case you find it difficult to share with your close circle, join groups that match your challenges.
Every one of us works hard to excel in our professional field but fails to maintain a personal life. It is important to give attention to both the need equally. To maintain a good a person has to maintain a proper work-life balance which is done by prioritizing things. There are ways to prioritize things without messing with our work-life valance such as prioritising value-based things, providing proper plans and preparation, negotiating flexible work hours, undergoing self-care and seeking support.
Sometimes while running in the direction of work people forget about family needs and demands. This leads to problems in family life. So it’s important to balance family and work life which can be done by maintaining a family timetable, preparing meals, tech-free zones making a to-do list and setting relaxation time. It’s time to maintain a healthy balance between personal and professional life.
According to Assistant Professor Dr Balbinder Singh, Hustle culture, which first appeared at the beginning of the twentieth century and became more well-known in the decade of the 2010s as social media became more popular, places a strong emphasis on perseverance, hard work, and continuous productivity. This culture, however, has the potential to conflate work and personal life, which can result in burnout, a poor relationships and self-care, and a decrease in creativity. Both mental and physical health are adversely affected by the pressure to perform. It is advised that establishing clear boundaries, putting self-care first, accepting flexibility, getting help, and routinely reassessing one’s own priorities in order to combat these effects and preserve an effective balance between work and life.
FAQs
1. What does Prioritizing mean and why it is important?
Prioritizing means organizing and ordering activities and people based on importance and emergency. It is important to prioritize then only an individual can able to spend the right time on the correct thing. It also helps to understand what is important for us and to which we have to pay attention.
2. How to strike a balance between work and family life?
- Prioritize things
- Proper plan and preparation
- Seek support
- Negotiate flexible working hours
- Undergo self-care and create a family time
3. What will happen when we spend more time on only one of these needs?
Spending more time on work while ignoring family life leads to conflict, and lack of communication and coordination among family members whereas spending more time with family while ignoring work life leads to decreased productivity, absenteeism, lack of motivation and job dissatisfaction.
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