HOW to Balance work and personal life

A few years ago, you could have found my picture under "workaholic" in the dictionary. I was constantly caught between endless phone calls, emails, and meetings. Balancing work and personal life felt like a magic trick.

Here, I want to provide you with a cheat sheet to master how to balance work and personal life.

1. Prioritize Your Tasks

In the last 20 years of working on productivity, I think the most popular way to manage work is to harness the power of a to-do list. There is a great benefit to getting actions out of your head and onto paper, but the twist is to prioritize them with the Eisenhower Matrix.

This gives you clear decisions about what to do!

For example:

• Urgent and important tasks to the top. At work, they could be project deadlines, client issues, or system failures. At home, they might be medical emergencies, childcare, addressing the immediate needs of children, or fixing a home repair such as a major leak. In short, these need to be done now. If you are spending lots of time here, it may be an indication of something more systemic.
• Non-urgent and important tasks to be scheduled. At work, they might be strategic planning, professional development, or relationship building. At home, it might be health and wellness, financial planning, and personal development. Effective time management is about increasing the time spent here.
• Urgent but not important tasks. At work, this might include non-critical emails, some meetings, and some administrative tasks. At home, it might be some social obligations, some minor reports, or some interruptions. These are prime candidates to reduce, delegate, or not do.
• Not urgent and not important. These are candidates to not do.

Once you've prioritized effectively, the next step to balance work and personal life is to manage how you approach your work hours.

2. Work in Bursts and Protect Your Focus

Productivity isn't born burning the candle at both ends; that's how you earn burnout badges. Instead, work in bursts and then take a break.

Think of your mind as doing a sprint and then taking a break strolling through your favorite park.

By working in short, intense periods, you can get more done without feeling overwhelmed.

The go-to strategy for this is the Pomodoro Technique.

1. Choose a Task: Pick a task you want to work on.
2. Set a Timer: Set a timer for 25 minutes. This is your "Pomodoro."
3. Work: Focus on your task until the timer rings. Avoid any distractions!
4. Take a Short Break: Take a 5-minute break to relax and recharge.
5. Repeat: After four Pomodoros, take a longer break (15-30 minutes).

3. Set and Communicate Boundaries

To balance work and personal life, key is to communicate your boundaries and expectations clearly at work and home. 

For example:

• With your colleagues, a simple, "I won't be checking emails after 6 pm," can work wonders.
• With yourself, it might be saying hello to the digital detox. I don't mean ditch the digital devices. Rather, set boundaries for your devices. A common example is to switch off email notifications and check email at scheduled times throughout the day. That way, your focus won't be interrupted by the ding of your email notification.
• Splitting your day into chunks where work and you-time are scheduled in the calendar.

The key is to start small and watch your personal life regain some spotlight. Here are some more tips on family work life balance and setting boundaries to achieve it.

4. Balance Work and Personal Life by Saying Yes

Balance isn't just about saying no; it's about crafting memorable yeses. Say yes to your priorities first.

These include your work and personal priorities. So, not only get your work priorities scheduled in the calendar but also put your personal priorities in. Make health a priority—walk, run, gym... it goes in the calendar. Family night... it goes in the calendar.

Why?

Because when it is in the calendar you are saying Yes to it. This makes saying No easier.

Just to be clear, saying No is not a call to rudeness but about protecting your time for the stuff that matters, which means you are turning up for your life.

5. Delegate More

I find that delegation is the most talked about but underutilized tool when it comes to time management. To be clear, you're not Superman. You don't need to be everywhere, doing everything, all the time.

The art of delegation requires a key question:

    Consider what strengths or weaknesses you're delegating. Are you empowering your team, or are you letting experts take the reins where you might not excel?

Knowing the answer to this question provides you with the necessary steps to delegate well.

For example, if you are delegating what you are good at, your approach will be guidance and support that empowers team members and allows you to multiply your expertise through others. However, if you are delegating your incompetence (stuff you are not good at), then the approach will be less guidance and support, more clarity on what the end goal is, and then allow the expert to get on with it.

Both types of delegation can be used strategically depending on the situation and the strengths of your team. I talk more about these two different approaches here.

Remember, achieving work-life balance is not one-size-fits-all. It's about finding harmony and creating fulfilling experiences both at work and at home.