Since the beginning of Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, traditional Work-From-Office culture has been replaced with the new normal Work-From-Home. With the reduction of pandemic criticality, companies have made a choice out of three options: started work-from-office again, continued work-from-home or introduced a hybrid approach.
Out of these options almost two options include the work-from-home approach up to a certain level. As a result, even in 2023, most of the employees working anywhere around the world are still engaging in work-from-home culture. As we all know, work-from-home has given us many benefits which makes it great. Therefore, it will be worth checking how we can add more value to work-from-home by maintaining a proper work-life balance, which has been identified as one of the most challenging aspects of work-from-home.
Why Do We Need Work-Life-Balance
Work-life balance maintenance significantly supports our health and interpersonal relationships while allowing us to improve our work productivity, which leads us towards a remarkable performance at work. Here are few more points which elaborate the importance of work-life balance for a Work-From-Home employee:
Can minimize health issues
Being healthy must be a part of our usual lifestyle. Living healthy refers to improving our physical health while maintaining proper mental health. It is a well-known fact that when we are tired and stressed with work, our well-being will suffer. A poor balance between work and life may lead to various illnesses starting from simple flu to serious conditions such as strokes. Once the employees are frequently suffering from health issues, it will impact the organization’s overall productivity.
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle empowered with work-life-balance will allow us to work efficiently with enough energy while making the best decisions with a pure mindset.
Can minimize work-related stress
We usually suffer from work-related stress when we are overloaded with work and responsibilities. Maintaining proper control over these aspects will help us to reach a satisfactory professional and personal balance.
Let’s start by learning to maintain work-life balance. Next, it will lead us to proactively manage our workload in an effective manner by prioritizing the most critical and time-sensitive work tasks. Then the results would be the controlled work-related stress.
Helps become more mindful
Being more mindful is to say we can be more focused on what we are doing now with work-life balance. By living in the moment, we can improve our ability to concentrate on the work tasks properly.
Once we have already balanced life, it is easy to be dedicated to work with more mindfulness without worrying about personal life.
Helps create a more well-rounded life
We all have different hobbies and interests that we prefer to enjoy in our personal lives. If we do not maintain work-life balance, we might lose them. It is a proven fact that engaging in personal interests helps us to develop skills while expanding knowledge in a wider range.
With a successful work-life balance, we can be smarter and more attractive in the working environment with our soft skills as well as with the diverse life experience.
How We Can Achieve Work-Life-Balance
We all can find the best route for the ultimate work-life balance with the below simple steps:
Prioritize work
We can manage our work by prioritizing the tasks based on their criticality and time-sensitivity. It will allow us to plan our workday properly and reduce the work pressure gradually with the time being.
Use work time effectively
We should be more productive during our worktime as it will affect the resolution time for a specific task. By concentrating and putting our best effort into the task we are doing now, we can complete it in less time.
Take small breaks
Do you know that even a 30 second break can reduce our stress, improve concentration while making us feel engaged and enjoyable?
Use your lunch break
When you are at the office, will you take your lunch at your work desk? We can follow the same practice while working at home. We can have our lunch outside of the working desk and enjoy the meal more mindfully.
Be open
When we are Working-From-Home, others occupying the place may not be completely aware about our current situation. Similarly, even if we might have a tough time at home, other teammates might not know about such. Hence it is never bad to be vocal about your difficulties. Once you reveal your challenges there will be plenty of colleagues to support you to overcome them.
Have small conversations with teammates as a part of working culture
This small practice will help us to maintain a convenient workplace surrounded with less stress and more productivity.
Reserve time for family
In this tip, we need support from our family as well to ensure that all our loved ones are on same stage by making the reserved time a priority in their lives as well.
Invest in relationships
By maintaining meaningful relationships with others, we can support our own mental well-being.
Now you know the importance of work-life balance. You have also heard the good news that it is not difficult to start balancing work and life outside work. It is time to practice!
SOURCE: Premachandra N. (2024, March 19). Importance Of Work-Life-Balance When Workıng-From-Home. IFS Blog. https://blog.ifs.com/2024/03/importance-of-work-life-balance-when-working-from-home-2/
