Work life balance – 5 lessons I learned so far

This could be interesting! The so called work life balance is something which is very easy to explain to others, but, difficult to implement in your “own” life! Well, that’s true for most of us. When I tried to Google it, I was amazed to see the huge number of suggestions on the WebSphere Needless to say, most of them didn’t work out for my life. Some of them make even disaster in my life. The balance between your work and personal life is something which you should find out on your way. The suggestions which may not suit to someone might well appropriate for you depends on situations and kind of work and vice-versa.

Here are the 5 lessons which I found in my own way, that changed my life into beauty. I hope these steps help you too.

1. Prepare yourself for your own day

   First is first, your whole day is totally based on how you start it! Prepare your morning mentally as well as physically strong for the whole day activities. I usually sleep at 10 or 10:30 PM and wake up at 5:30 AM. Drink water after you woke up since your body needs it. Do exercise. I go for cycling at morning. You can do some yoga or badminton also. Play some good songs which give you energy and inspirations. Smile at least once in a day (believe me; this makes a huge difference in your day). Be ready for your office with full energy.
   During your office hours you can follow ‘pomodoro technique’ to feel energized and work efficiently.
   Once you come back to your room after office hours, you can engage with what you love the most. It can be played with your dogs or watching something interesting. Call someone you love (mostly your parents/wife if are away) at least once in a day. This makes you happier and give a confident that you have someone who can understand you in a better way.
   Need a pro tip? Install some application such as ‘Fabulous’ and ‘Meditation Music’ to get started with your day.

2. Make a plan to change the plan

   This might be strange to you. You need to make a plan for the whole day. This plan can be very simple to mention which activity you should do at each time. This is very important if you are working in a corporate office. You should know your timings so that, you can prepare yourself to complete it in a much efficient way. Interestingly, this is your temporary schedule which you make at each morning. The things which you make can change and nothing is permanent. But the advantage of having a pre-planned schedule is that, you will get a better insight of your whole day change, if you change something from your plan. Most of us will not do this and get a surprise and loose timings at last. So, better start it early.

3. The power of NO!

   Most of us believe that NO is a bad word which we should not use in our life. This is the fundamental wrong thing which I have done in my earlier career life. The result was miserable. I was taking all tasks and responsibility from both my work and life and end up by losing all promises. You should know when and how to say NO. Let us take an example, consider my boss telling me at morning 9AM that, I have to release software suit to the customer by 2PM. I should say YES here. While I was preparing the release, my boss come after 1 hour and again telling me that, I have to prepare a document for internal review which going to happen at 4PM. He also advises me to start with the first document and then go to the release. Now should I say YES/NO to his advice? Well, I know that the document work will take at least 1 hour and it is going to be reviewed at 4PM only. I should say an indirect NO to his advice by saying that both I can manage and finish on time. A ‘NO’ is well suited here than a ‘YES’.

4. E-mails – When should I check it?

   This could be funny to you, but in reality, most of us using the E-mail as a chat application now.
   The original e-mail was developed to send important messages and not expect to be at real time scenarios. Usual e-mail responses get within half a day or in a day. That means you don’t have to always check and respond to e-mails when they arrived in your inbox.
   I usually check my inbox 3 times a day. I open my e-mail at morning when I switch on my computer, after lunch and then at evening. I also make sure to tag each mails based on their relevance and make a TODO tag for some urgent mails. This way, I can order the mails and reply to the mails which are important to me.

5. Priority…Priority and Priority

   This one is not a step, but a suggestion. You can’t balance your work and life until you priorities your daily activities. I used to check my Facebook, photo sharing sites and chat applications. But I do maintain a specific time for doing all these activities. We can enjoy our life when we start finding time for all our most important things. Work life balance is something which tells you what you should do at a specific time so that you can enjoy your whole day.

Do you have any specific tip to add to the list? I would love to hear that…