20 Minutes to Better Work/Life Balance

While overworking seems to be popular these days, the effects can be extremely damaging to your body, mind, spirit, and relationships. The temptation may be strong, but there's ultimately no benefit to giving an unbalanced amount of your life to work even when you have bills to pay. In fact, the harder you push yourself, the more likely it is you will experience burnout and the health problems that coincide with it. An unhealthy pace is unsustainable and makes it difficult to maintain a healthy big-picture perspective.

So, what do you do when you realize that you are burning both ends of the candle? First, it’s important to prioritize balance in all the aspects of your life including work. Of course, work is extremely important. It keeps your brain active; it feels good to be productive, and it provides the income necessary for you and your family to survive and thrive. But it also wears you down if you don’t act with intention when it comes to implementing balance between the time you dedicate to work and the time you dedicate to relationships, spiritual health, physical health, and your mental well-being.

While there is no magic formula for obtaining work/life balance, the following tips will help you create a pattern of intentionality in your thoughts that can set you up to make mindful decisions geared towards balance in your life.

1.     Spend five minutes setting up your day. This exercise at the beginning of each day is crucial. Prayer or meditation at the start of the day can mean the difference between moving through your day with a narrow focus that results in missed opportunities or facing the day with openness and flexibility. It also prevents you from seeking to aggressively control the circumstances of your day vs approaching it with calm diligence.

·       Prayer or meditation centers your mind and calms your spirit. It also helps relieve any tension you feel about the day ahead and helps you see the big picture. When you practice big-picture perspective, it reduces the stress you may otherwise feel over the daily inconveniences and frustrations of life.

·       Spending time in prayer or meditation can reorient your priorities to help you accomplish your most important goals, particularly those outside of work that may be forgotten or pushed off to a later date when you are focused solely on work. Of course, if you have more than five minutes at the beginning of your day to focus on prayer/meditation, you should certainly take advantage of it. This is one activity that will always prove to be a beneficial use of time.

2.     Dedicate five minutes to planning. Once you've grounded yourself through prayer or meditation, it’s time to plan your day. Planning means organizing your tasks so you can be productive without pushing yourself beyond healthy limits. This means giving yourself margin. It isn’t effective to plan your schedule so tightly that there isn’t space for the unexpected or for time to breathe.

·       Prioritize your tasks based on their importance. Consider tackling the most difficult tasks when you are at your most effective, at the beginning of the day if you are most energized in the morning or after lunch if it takes you a little longer to get motivated.

·       Starting the day with a plan helps to keep you focused and stress-free, so, to the best of your ability, stick to your plan. I realize that things come up each day that are not within your control. We will address that in the next section, but when you have the choice of whether to stick to your plan or stray into an energy-wasting activity, exercise the self-control to stay the course. At the end of the day, you’ll be so grateful that you did.

3.     Allow five minutes for checking in. Whether all at once or in one-minute intervals, check up on yourself throughout the day. Assess how well you've been able to stick to your plan. Have you accomplished your important tasks? Have you been able to manage your day without losing your cool?

·       There will be times when you’ll have to readjust your list of tasks. Unforeseen circumstances are a regular part of daily life. What's important, is that you take them in stride, staying focused on the big picture, and don’t allow them to steal your peace.

·       Avoid letting those unexpected events throw your plan out completely. It’s perfectly acceptable to take a moment to change your approach. Remember that margin we talked about earlier? This is where it will pay dividends in your ability to maintain a calm, peaceful state of mind. Learn how to go with the flow. Obtaining balance doesn’t come through aggressively controlling every aspect of the day.

4.     Prioritize five minutes for winding down. Now that you've come to the end of the day, it's time to wind down. Maybe you haven’t allowed yourself the opportunity to do that before. Taking time to wind down is the best way to relieve the stress of the day.

·       Engage in some relaxing activities. Do you like yoga or would you prefer to sit quietly and listen to jazz music? Take a short walk or listen to a motivational podcast. Whatever relaxation looks like for you, give yourself five uninterrupted minutes to be present. Let go of what happened today and clear mental space to enjoy all the other aspects of life.

·       Winding down also opens you up to spending quality-time with loved ones. Perhaps you’ve noticed that at the end of a busy day, you may be too tired to interact with anyone. That will change when you allow yourself time to wind down each day. After all, this is why you have worked so hard all day, right? Set yourself up for the best possible opportunity to enjoy quality-time with those most important to you.

Once you try it, you'll realize that this approach can be so helpful in establishing an intentional practice of prioritizing balance in your life. Designating these 20 minutes each day can help you create and maintain a healthy balance between your professional and personal lives. It can also help you manage all other aspects of your life with more joy and ease. A calm, peaceful lifestyle will become habitual as you intentionally focus on creating balance throughout your life.