Achieving Harmony: Mastering Family Work Life Balance

Family work life balance can sometimes feel like you're trying to pin down a cloud—tricky at best, exasperating and guilt-ridden at worst. When you’re at work, you feel you should be with family, and vice versa.

Many successful people believe they must do everything, but this is a recipe for stress and overwhelm.

Instead, focus on what’s truly important. Here are some practical strategies to help you balance work and family life.

1. Think About Your Balance Goals

How do you envision balancing work and family? Do you want to be home for dinner regularly? Would you like to disconnect from your phone at home to spend quality time with family?

Clarity on what family and work balance means to you is an important first step.

Use our template (at end of the article) to define what balance means for you and how you will achieve it.

2. Set Boundaries to Achieve Family Work Life Balance

Boundaries help maintain a healthy family work life balance.

For instance, in her book Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, leaves the office at 5:30 p.m. daily to have dinner with her children at 6 p.m., demonstrating the importance of prioritizing family time and setting boundaries for it. Setting boundaries, especially for the things that matter to you and your family, can be achieved in several ways. Some actionable strategies to set boundaries and achieve work life balance are:

1. Define Your Work Hours: Set specific start and end times for your workday. Then communicate these to your colleagues and team so that they are aware of your availability. If you can, try to avoid checking emails or taking calls outside of this time.
2. Create a Dedicated Workspace: This is the elephant in the room when it comes to working from home. It is crucial to lay down boundaries like a seasoned diplomat. This boundary between work and personal life helps you to switch modes (so corral your family for a "door closed, do not disturb" policy during work hours). Setting these boundaries helps to unplug from work and enjoy personal time with the family
3. Use Time Blocks: Sometimes we can feel like time is our frenemy. Consider allocating specific blocks of time for work, family, and me-time, and then guarding them like a hawk would its nest. The key here is to reduce overwhelm.
   

Brainstorm your strategies below on the template. 

3. Learn to Say No

Related to boundaries and prioritization is saying No or Low. In her book Lean In, Sandberg emphasizes the importance of saying No in order to say Yes to her highest priorities. By aligning with her priorities, she can make time for the things that truly matter.

However, sometimes it is not possible to say No, so my question to you is how can you say Low?

In other words, can you reduce the commitment that you are being asked to consider?

For example, rather than a 2-hour meeting, can we have a 30-minute meeting? Rather than a face-to-face catch-up, can it be online? Rather than a full report, can I provide a summary of the situation?

Some actionable strategies you can consider are:

1. Start small. Start with easy things to say No to. So when a distant cousin invites you to that mysterious weekend “family reunion,” saying no is pretty easy. It isn’t a weakness; it’s your secret weapon for protecting your family's work-life balance.
2. Look over last week's calendar. Is there an activity that you could have said No or Low to? Look over the following week's calendar, what can you say No or Low to?
3. Say Yes to the things that truly matter in your life. But do more than say Yes; get them into your calendar first and protect them like the last pizza at a party. When you have these things in your calendar, it is easier to say No or Low.

Fill out the template below to identify strategies that will work for you. 

4. Prioritize Self-Care

Taking deliberate actions to nurture your physical, emotional, and mental well-being is crucial for you to be the best version of yourself for your family.

For instance, to disconnect and recharge, Richard Branson makes it a rule to unplug from work to enjoy personal time with family, Oprah Winfrey practices mindfulness and meditation every day to reduce stress, while Michelle Obama is known for her commitment to regular exercise.

Some actionable strategies you can take today are:

1. Take regular breaks every hour and use that time to stretch or walk around. This reduces stress and prevents burnout.
2. Spend 5-10 minutes practicing mindfulness each day. Here you can use apps like Headspace or Calm.
3. Prioritize 20-30 minutes of exercise into your routine. Often the difficulty is to find the time to do this with a busy family and work life. So consider getting off one bus stop earlier, or walking the stairs instead of using a lift. Look for little ways you can incorporate this into your daily routine.

Template for Download

To help you personalize your work-family balance plan, download this Work and Family Balance Template. Fill in the template to tailor your approach to family work life balance.