You CAN Balance Work and a Home Life!
By Sherril Steele-Carlin
It seems that more and more people find it difficult to finish their tasks in an eight-hour day, so they spend more hours at the office than they'd like. Is there any way to balance the time you spend working with your home life? The good news is, yes you can, and it may not be as difficult as you imagine. The key here may not be the number of hours you work, but how you handle the hours you don't.
What is your quality of life? When you leave work are you so exhausted that you go home, eat, and fall into bed? If that's the case, then maybe you really are working too much. Is your family life suffering? Do you HAVE a family life? Perhaps the key for you is working 4 days a week, instead of 5, or taking longer vacations. If your employer isn't that flexible, perhaps it's time you looked for one who is, or began working on your own as a professional contractor.
One way to decide what will work for you is to picture the life you'd really like to be living. Does it include this much work? How about time for family and friends? Would you live where you live now? Would you be doing the same type of work? What are the obstacles you face in trying to attain this lifestyle? You need to know just what it is you want before you can make it happen, and create goals to make it happen.
Getting Started
Now that you've taken a deeper look into your life and answered some questions about what you'd like it to be, what can you do to make that happen? It's easiest if you start small, and work your way up to bigger changes in your life, like job or relationship changes.
To begin with, tackle a smaller problem, like how much you work every day. Is there a way for you to work less each week, even 30 minutes a day less? You'll be surprised how much difference even 30 minutes can make in a day, when you make a conscious choice to cut back. Use that 30 minutes to regenerate yourself, not for anything else like running errands. Try taking a walk in the park, read a book, meditate, or just sit and appreciate the view. Once you get in the habit of giving yourself 30 minutes each day, it will become routine for you, and you'll look forward to the time spent "just for you." You'll be surprised how much better your outlook is as a result!
Make a Plan
Once you've decided what your goals are, and what's most important to you, you can begin to work on achieving those goals. It doesn't matter if they are personal or professional goals, you can make a plan to make them come true. For example, you'd like to work part-time instead of full-time. Can you begin to save a bit of money each month to help you achieve your goal? Can you find a part-time job that pays better than your job now, so you can afford to work part-time? Can you augment your income in some other way, like freelancing, in order to work part-time?
Once you have some logical steps to follow, you're one step closer to your goal! If you have many goals, and it all seems to overwhelming to you, try working on one goal at a time, before attempting all of them at once. Once you reach one goal, don't stop, keep reaching for the next goal!
Keep Working!
Remember, you can't reach your goals in one day, or even one week. Don't give up, just keep your goal in mind, and keep reaching for it. Your quality of life and lifestyle balance begins with you. This is the perfect time to create the life you've always wanted -- one step at a time. It may not always be easy, but you can do it, all you have to do is start!