Many of us have heard of the expression "work-life balance". The term illustrates the balance between work and personal life. The last two or three decades have seen a substantial increase in workload due to globalisation, advancements in information technology like email and remote working, improvements in travel and transport, ever more demanding performance cultures, increasing job insecurity due to outsourcing to lower cost locations, etc. These all contribute to an increasingly competitive work environment at the expense of our personal lives – more time spent at work and on work means less time spent at home or by yourself engaging in personal activities.

With more people adopting work-at-home schedules and the enablement of “working anytime anywhere” (more like working all-the-time everywhere) through IT home-working, the boundaries between work and personal free time have become increasingly blurred. Working more means less time spent with family, relatives, friends and your community in general. You as an individual lose the required time and space to develop personally, mentally, physically and spiritually.

Are you overworked? Are you achieving work-life balance? Do you manage work and personal time well? The common symptoms overworked employees experience includes high levels of stress, burnout, headaches and migraine, body aches and muscular stiffness, chronic fatigue, anxiety, irritability, lower energy levels and lower sex drive. Many highly stressed individuals also cope by turning to smoking, drinking or harmful recreational drugs. If these sound like symptoms you experience, then you might not be managing your work stress levels as well as you should, and might be working more than you should at the expense of personal sacrifice. If you feel that you are working too much and would now like to focus more on personal aspects of life, here are some useful places to find information on how you can do that:

1. You would like to improve on relationships with family and friends. Missing out on important family events? Losing touch with close friends? Time to foster relationships.

2. You would like to improve on your sex life.

3. You would like to improve on managing your time: The secret of effective time management is analyzing how you currently spend your time (A) and deciding how you want to change how you spend your time (B). The difference (DiffTM)© between (A) and (B) is the effectiveness gap which you have to close.

4. You would like to improve on health & fitness.

5. You would like to improve on lifestyle & wellness.

Some tips to help you improve your work-life balance

1. Schedule your time: Keep track of your time for a short period and see how much time you spend on work as well as personal activities. Prioritise and cut out the unimportant activities. Allocate more time to personal activities that give you the most utility (spending quality time with family and friends, hobbies, health & fitness, charity work, etc). Document all important dates like birthdays and anniversaries so you never let anyone down again.

2. Separate work from life! – Focus all you can at work. When you are not working, switch off mentally and everything else related to work (laptop, cell phone, Blackberry, PDA, notebook, etc). Spend quality time with the people you love, doing the things that you enjoy.

3. Manage your time: There are many ways, but prioritising important tasks and cutting out less important ones are a good way to start. First things first.

Take a look at our Time Management category.

4. Health first: Take care of yourself! Get enough sleep so that you can concentrate at work better - late nights and working weekends can result in chronic fatigue and quickly become counter-productive. Eat balanced, regular meals to regulate your energy levels. Take vitamin supplements to keep your immune system up.

5. Use available technology to save time: Teleconferencing and other communication tools that reduce the need for travel and face-to-face meetings.

6. Use options available at work: Flexible working hours, reduced working time, working from home, a compressed workweek, flexible vacation arrangements and teleconferencing all help to increase your personal time to do things you like.

7. Remember to have FUN: Make sure you set aside free time to do the things that you enjoy to help you relax and reinvigorate yourself. Make necessary arrangements like reservations, transport and childcare in advance so that nothing will upset your fun plans.

8. Seek professional help: If you think that you cannot cope, don’t be shy to ask for professional advice. It is very common and you are definitely not alone. Get a coach or counselor, attending courses, get access to the employee assistance program provided by your employer, etc.

Remember, achieving work-life balance is not a one-off task. It is a continuous improvement process, like what we here at PIH always advocate. Family, personal interests and work life situations are usually not static but dynamic and change frequently. You should track your progress regularly to ensure that your stress levels are in check and work is not taking over your life. Also, always try to be realistic and remind yourself that balance does not equate to doing everything, but doing all the important things first. Prioritising both work and personal tasks to ensure that you are as effective (and balanced) as possible.

Additional resources

1. US-based, onsite or online programs for work-life balance, stress management and time management. Picking up where traditional training and work life benefits leave off, 5 Steps to Better Work Life Balance boosts productivity by teaching people how to attain a higher level of Achievement & Enjoyment everyday, both on and off the job.

2. UK-based, classroom time management course to achieve work-life balance. One-day course for £420 including VAT.

3. Work-life balance: Ways to restore harmony and reduce stress.

4. 5 tips for better work-life balance. 

Free ebooks

7 Ways to Prevent Stress Stress normally increases with age. Remember those days when you were just a kid without any woes? As we grow older, stress often stems from work instability, health issues, etc. Read this ebook to know more about stress and to better cope with it.

More resources

1. Liveperson.com

This website gives you instant access to hundreds of experts online, with a price per minute charge. For example, you can have access to a range of professional counsellors and medical doctors for an online chat at a price of, for example, $1.79 per minute. Prices range between $1.50 and $3.00.

This translates into $107.40 for an hour’s worth of professional advice, which might sound like a lot of money at first, but if you consider that you are sat in the comforts of your own home it might be well worth your while. In addition, you can choose the preferred duration of your session, and end it whenever you like. If you do actually go to see a professional at their office, they usually charge for a full hour regardless so this is already a cost-effective method.

How to choose an expert? Well the site uses an easy to understand 5-star rating, as well as the number of reviews the expert has below it. Reviews are given by previous customers and you can also read their comments before deciding.

Get advice today!
Powered by LivePerson

2. Browse through wide range of products in our PIH InfoMart or search for relevant books in our PIH Bookshop.

You can also find more resources and information in our "Additional Resources" page.