Struggling to maintain work-life balance? These tips could help.
You may breathe a sigh of relief after a tough day at work when you can shut off your computer and head back out into the wider world. Just because you have stepped foot outside your building doesn’t mean you’ve actually fully switched off, though.
It’s easy to find your mind casting back to the events of the day and then pendulum-swinging forward to whatever you’ll need to tackle in the coming days. This is often compounded with the far-reaching hand of technology and social media, making it easier than ever to leaf through your emails before bed or respond to a colleague during dinner.
Don’t fall into the trap of assuming that this is innocuous. It can have very negative effects on your psychological – and even physical – health to be so constantly connected to your work. In some countries, such as Japan, death from overwork is so common that it has its own nomenclature. In Japan, it’s karoshi.
Some people may voluntarily choose to engage with work after hours, albeit sometimes out of a sense of obligation. For others, thoughts about work may come on unprompted and are occasionally invasive, such as when you’re trying to get to sleep at night. So, what do you do?
CashNetUSA has compiled this infographic with some great tips on how you can improve your work-life balance by making sure you shut off once you leave the office.
Reserve the last half hour of the day for making to-do lists, dusting off your desk and overall just wrapping up. This has the double effect of helping you better prepare for tomorrow and also ensures you don’t inadvertently stay longer than you intended.
So really, even though you’ll be doing less work, applying this tip and a few others will likely make you more productive. To get some more ideas, check out the infographic below.
Infographic: CashNetUSA
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