How to achieve work-life balance
 Management consultant Graham Yemm shares his secrets...
We hear a lot about the need to achieve work-life balance. But in this world of increasing pressure and workplace demands, is it really feasible? The short answer is 'yes'.
Poor work-life balance leads to a build up of pressure. There may be tension in your personal life if you are not devoting enough time to that, or you may struggle to cope with the demands of work. As these pressures mount, the imbalance creates stress.
Organisations are more aware of the costs of stress-related issues these days. Not achieving work-life balance can affect you as an individual, your team or colleagues and your family and friends, so it matters to get it right!
For most of us, a lack of work-life balance is a result of things creeping up slowly, rather than a specific event causing it. If we do not take action on small imbalances and problems as they happen they quickly become habit.
Accept responsibility
While the events and culture at work and the expectations of other staff can affect work-life balance, the reality is that the problem is self-inflicted. You have allowed it to happen and the solution lies with you!
You can only move on by accepting more responsibility for how you use, or abuse, your own time. You also need to acknowledge that the underlying problems arise because you are allowing others to take more control of your time.
Know what you want
One problem many people face is they do not know what their ideal work-life balance would be like. It can help you to take action if you have a clear idea of the end result you are aiming for.
Write down ideas, mindmap them or even draw an image of what you want. Be specific about what you want for yourself, for your relationships and for work.
Identify how you spend your time
Now you know what you want, think about what needs to be different to achieve this. Identify what is happening with your time, and your life, currently.
It can help to make a note of exactly what you are doing in the different areas of your life, who and what interrupts you and how long these things are taking. Then you can assess the activities against the key tasks of your job and ask yourself which of these could or should be done by someone else.
What needs to change? Examining your values and beliefs
Before you can use your time more effectively, you must identify what needs to change.
Over a number of years of working with groups and individuals in all aspects of time and stress management, I have come to the conclusion that we all make choices about how we spend our time.
I believe that when we work late, even if asked by the boss, we are choosing to do that rather than go home to our family. We do not always think of it in those terms because the choices operate unconsciously.
Our choices are based on our values and beliefs. Values are the things that are important to us while beliefs are things we ‘hold to be true’.
Beliefs take two forms; empowering and limiting. Put simply, the empowering ones are our ‘can do’ or ‘it’s okay to’ thoughts, whereas the limiting ones are the ‘must’, ‘mustn’t’, ‘can’t do’ or ‘it’s not ok to’ thoughts.
A combination of values and beliefs dictate what we choose to do with our time. You may have values around security, career and ambition, which rate higher than values about family, relationships or self. You might have some limiting beliefs which say, ‘I must do what my manager (or other authority figures) asks.’
If you decide that achieving a better work-life balance is important you need to start by examining your values and beliefs. Firstly, identify what are your values. List them and then leave alone. Go back and look at them, decide what else you might want to add and then prioritise them. This can be a great exercise to do with a partner or significant other.
When prioritised, evaluate how well you think these are being met with your current work-life balance. Where there is a gap, there will be a greater probability of pressure and stress being generated. If these really matter to you, you will take steps to start to make sure that your life is being lived to achieve them. This is why I said earlier that the solutions to getting your work-life balance lie with you!
Planning for the future
The next stage is to tackle the areas you have identified that are upsetting your work-life balance and create an action plan to move forward.
Check back on your time logs and notice what is diverting your time from your priorities, then begin to re-focus on them:
• Decide what you need to reduce or cut back at work;
• Learn to say ‘no’ more often, be okay about being unavailable to others in order to get on with your own work. This includes the telephone;
• Accept that you need to take breaks and have a life in order to be more productive;
• Organise your time with basic time management techniques, ‘to do lists’, time planners, etc;
• Plan to do things for yourself and with your family and friends and stick to those plans;
• Schedule to leave work at a certain time and stick to it;
• Avoid taking work home and doing it during the evenings or at weekends, only allowing yourself very rare exceptions.
Take control
If your work-life balance is not what you want it to be, recognise that one of the reasons for this is you have allowed others to take control of your time. To achieve the balance you want and lead a happier life, with less pressure and greater contentment, you must take back control.
Be willing to change, and take responsibility for your own actions and reactions and use the appropriate behaviours to get the work-life balance you want.
Graham Yemm is a consultant with many years experience of working with groups and individuals on their time management and handling pressure and stress.
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