Top 10 Work Life Balance Tips: A Basic Guide for Managers and Leaders

In addition to the Top 10 Work Life Balance Tips, we also address below:

• What is Work-Life Balance?
• Why what you normally hear about Work-Life Balance is inadequate.

What is Work-Life Balance?

Simply put, Work-Life Balance is successfully reconciling your work demands, and the demands made upon you by other aspects of your life.

What Work-Life Balance is Not:

Contrary to much of the discussion out there, Work-Life Balance is NOT about figuring out how to cram more leisure activities into your already crazy schedule. The most balanced people do less, not more.

What You Normally Hear About Work-Life Balance:

• “Work-Life Balance will enhance workplace productivity”. This is true in many cases, but such statements imply that the primary responsibility for achieving Work-Life Balance is that of the employer. This isn't true, and it's irresponsible, as employees must share accountability to make it happen.
• “Many people self-identify as workoholics”. This is true – in fact a 2011 General Social Survey (StatsCan) revealed that nearly one-third of workers self-identified as workoholics. The problem here is that this is the only form of self-destructive behavior that is still admired. You don’t hear people bragging about their drinking problem, or their gambling addiction, but people will entertain others around the water cooler with their self-perceived status as a martyr because they worked 80 hours last week. Employers definitely have a responsibility here, but the employees’ accountability is definitely often over-looked.
• “There are increasing demands on people to take care of children and elders, etc.” This is also true, but no more so than in previous generations. It is true that many households have both people working outside the home, which creates more challenges, but it can only be perceived as a conflict, if taking care of one’s family is considered “work” rather than “life”. Statements like this reinforce the false notion that the opposite of work is leisure, when in fact that is not true.

Top 10 Work Life Balance Tips:

1. Don’t be a Perfectionist. If you have to dot every “i” and cross every “t”, you won’t find yourself with a lot of extra time. The most successful people are satisfied with 80% on most things, and save their need for 100% for the occasional, truly important things.
2. Disconnect. Many people voluntarily check their work email at all hours, and find themselves “multi-tasking.” For the vast majority of people, this is voluntary. With the exception of when you are “on-call”, there is no need to bring work to your weekends and evenings on a regular basis.
3. Say “No”. You don’t actually have to be on every committee or project, and you may want to be selective with your volunteer activities. Contrary to popular belief, you CAN’T do it all.
4. Minimize & Mitigate “Drive-bys”. If you work in an open office, or are otherwise prone to many interruptions, use headphones, or some other method to signal youare unavailable. If you don't have an office door – create one.
5. Delegate. Many people, particularly in positions of leadership don't do this well. Identify some things you can get off your plate, and get someone else to do them. What might be routine and boring for you, could be a stretch assignment that someone else might be able to pour some real energy into.
6. Reel Back Your Expectations. The romantic notion of being a corporate executive working 100 hours per week, participating in the triathalon, and coaching each of your five kids’ soccer teams works only on TV sitcoms. In real life it isn't possible, and people have to make adult choices about what is most important to them. The most successful people make these trade-offs in a way that fulfills them.
7. Don’t Think You’re Indispensible. You may be very valuable to your organization, but nobody is indispensible. It may make you feel important, but any company that has an over-reliance on any one (or small group of) individual(s), isn't properly managing its risk. If you feel indispensible, consider it a business problem, not an ego boost.
8. Block Your Time. Be completely present at your kid’s soccer game – block that time for him/her. Most of the time multi-tasking doesn’t work, so don’t try.
9. Indulge in Some Small Pleasure Daily. This might be a simple as leaving your office for coffee for 20 minutes every morning, or perhaps going to the gym at lunch. Whatever it is, find something that you love, or relaxes you, and try to do that thing every day.
10. Exercise Discipline. Reading the above, it might be easy to conclude that we’re suggesting it’s easy – it is not. Just like being a performance athlete, it takes a lot of work to get into the shape you want to be in, and just as much work to maintain it. Stick with it – it'lll be worth it.

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