When we find a career that we love, it can be difficult finding that perfect balance between your home life and your work life. You want to keep on top of things with work, because your success brings you joy and makes you feel accomplished. But you also want to keep some sort of separation from work so that you can have healthy relationships with friends or family. The biggest problem comes from where, and how, you draw the line.
Leave Your Funk at the Door
A number of years ago I heard a motivational speaker on how to excel at your job. The vast majority of the dissertation wasn’t for me, but one part stuck out. He explained that if you bring your funk home, your family relationships are going to suffer. So after work you can think about everything that’s going on, and all the stressful stuff you have to do, but as soon as you get to the front door, drop it all off. Physically go through the motions if you need to and leave your funk at the door. Home life is for home activities; don’t even think about work until you leave the house the next day.
Ask to Readjust Your Schedule
Many people have jobs that don’t require them to be present five days per week. If you are in this situation, schedule a time to talk with your boss about working 10 hours shifts four days per week. You still get the same number of hours, but then you will have Fridays off to enjoy more time with your friends and family.
Now there are often problems that can creep up on a Friday that demand your attention, so your compromise may need to be that you are “on call” for a few hours on a Friday morning. Most likely you will never get a call, but it’s an acceptable sacrifice in order to have three day weekends.
Use Your Vacation Time
Yes, you have a ton of projects backed up at the office. Yes, it does create a little bit of a hassle to take time off of work. If you are lucky enough to have a job that offers paid vacation days, use them! Studies have shown that workers who take time away from work are far more productive than those who try to work all of the time.
If you have paid vacation days left at the end of the year that are expiring, you are losing out on free money. Take a Monday off here and there throughout the fall if you notice your vacation days will end up expiring. Just don’t check your email or try to work on your day off, that defeats the purpose of taking a vacation.
Reevaluate Your Priorities
If you find that you are spending much more time at the office than you would really like to, take 20 minutes to reevaluate your priorities. Is work actually that important to you that your family and home life should suffer? Are 10 extra hours at the office every week absolutely necessary? You may be better served to incorporate some time management techniques into your workday so you can get home at a reasonable hour.
You may want to take it a step further and write down your life goals. A career change that allows more flexibility may be necessary.
Wrapping it Up
Work is important to most people. It gives a sense of identity, helps people to feel accomplished, and provides us with an income to support our family. But when work starts to take over our lives, our family life may suffer. If that happens, then it is time to step back and reevaluate what we want out of our careers. A better balance between work and home will make everything in our lives run much smoother, so take some time today to determine what your goals are and how you can create that balance.
