This article discusses the importance of maintaining a healthy work-life balance and the challenges of doing so, particularly in the era of remote work. It delves into the definitions and signs of healthy and unhealthy work-life balances. A healthy balance involves setting boundaries, time management, stress management, and flexibility. On the other hand, an unhealthy balance is characterized by overwork, neglected personal life, and burnout.
The article highlights the negative consequences of poor work-life balance, such as increased risk for health issues like stroke, anxiety, and depression. It also emphasizes that poor work-life balance impacts productivity and relationships.
To improve work-life balance, the article suggests various tips:
Planning ahead for work and leisure
Using productivity hacks
Designating specific time blocks for different tasks
Setting a time to end work for the day
Using technology to help unplug
Taking time off and practising mindfulness
Communication with your manager
Working with a coach or therapist
It also includes a section aimed at managers on how they can support their team’s work-life balance. The advice includes reminders to unplug, creating space for social connections, respecting working hours, and setting examples.
The article ends by discussing the unique challenges and benefits of remote work. While working from home has some advantages, it also blurs the lines between work and personal life, making it harder to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Don’t get caught up in distant goals or 5-year plans. Life is not linear; it’s a series of meandering paths. Focus on the next step, on what’s in front of you now. There are no ‘aha’ moments; only tiny, incremental gains. And that’s OK. Keep at it
Personality- who am i, what kind of person do i want to be?
Be polite and respectful of others, for example, say good morning to as many people as you can from when you enter the office to when you get to your desk. Its a very simple thing, but being polite can generate a positive environment. Be interested in other people. Remember The Number 1 motivator is feedback on results.
Have a good attitude if you have a problem, find a solution, don’t just complain about it. For example, rather than just complaining about a flickering light above your desk. Find out who to speak to and try and get it fixed.
Contagion is normally something you think of with respect to say the flu. But viewed in an office and company environment. Think how good or bad news or attitudes can spread. What happens when someone who has been “infected” gets home?
Be a Critical thinker:
Challenging Status Quo: Don’t do things just because they’ve always been done that way.
Consider Multiple Perspectives: Take different viewpoints into account.
Prioritization: Focus on what truly matters, even if there are tempting distractions.
Problem Reframing: When faced with an issue, find alternative solutions beyond the obvious.
Effective Listening: Listen more than you speak, be actively engaged in understanding. Understand what makes different people tick some people are like waves in and out
Self-Reflection: Be open to admitting the potential for being wrong.
Learning from Setbacks: Analyse setbacks, prevent their recurrence, and extract lessons.
Time Management: Recognize the importance of making the most of each moment.
6. Work out the X things that drive you in life and make sure they are balanced and not in need of attention, while a lot of these do overlap in places mine are:
7. don’t spend time worrying about what you cannot control, instead focus on what you can control
8. Keep focused and remove distractions if needs be i.e Mobile phones
9. Watch less TV
10.Aim to Work smarter v longer
“Being busy and being productive are not the same thing. It’s easy to be busy. It’s hard to be productive. Being productive is not about doing more; it’s about concentrating all your energy on the few things that matter.“
11. experiment and test assumptions i.e remove phone from the room you are working on, reduce browsing the internet, take longer breaks or more shorter one’s, try blocking out time for key tasks, etc…
12. There are different ways to approach this but i like working out my goals for the week and then breaking each day down. Making sure i have time for things like exercise. I find keeping a Physical work Diary like “Clever Fox Planner Schedule” very useful (i started on a simpler daily planner but i found it didn’t include as much as i needed and wanted for long term planning and reflection)
Don’t get caught up in distant goals or 5-year plans. Life is not linear; it’s a series of meandering paths. Focus on the next step, on what’s in front of you now. There are no ‘aha’ moments; only tiny, incremental gains. And that’s OK. Keep at it
“Compound effort, like drops of water, may seem insignificant at first, but over time, it has the power to shape mountains of achievement” ChatGbt
Think about this
If you were to truly grow 1% every day, then you calculate the potential for growth in the year as an exponent, 1.01 to the 365th power. I’ll save you the time, that equals 3,800% in one year. That is a pretty insane amount of growth, and I think we’d all agree that would be a good year.
But what if we pick something more reasonable, say .1% every day. At the end of a year you’d experience 44% growth, meaning you’ve expanded your capacity by almost half of what you were previously capable of! That still would be incredible progress.
Be interested in other people rather than make them interested in you
Find out what excites someone, find out how do they spend their time? For example
Ask people for advice on what interests them, for example if you know someone interest is stamp collecting, ask how you would get your son involved as a beginner.
Give people frequent praise, for example acknowledge when someone does something difficult
I read a quote talking referring to classical music on you tube but it can be expanded to many parts of our current work and life. It went something like this ….
We are so lucky to live in this world , over a century ago we would have been able to watch a world class music performance once in a lifetime today we can re-watch it every day.
I think the same applies to learning today. We have so much skill and knowledge at our fingertips.
So on to the reasons for this blog.
I am a techie based in the UK with over 20 years of IT experience.
I want to share knowledge with anyone who might find it helpful.
The source of information in the posts includes sourcing data from but not limited to:
You tube
Udemy
Work colleagues
Past Experience
Books i have read
a Lot of the images on the pages are AI generated from DALL-E.
My main approach with articles is to make my own notes on a topic and then ask Chatgbt to help create a blog article by expanding on my points. Then i refine that article as appropriate.
