Contributed by Katherine Egan, Executive Director, Organizational Effectiveness, Fordham IT
With everything we do now taking place at home, it can be difficult to maintain balance and positivity. This is true for everyone sharing your home space. These circumstances make it more important than ever to create harmony in your life and establish a healthy rhythm that supports you and your family.
Here are five tips to help bring your home and work life into balance.
Practice Self-Care
- What’s that saying? You can’t pour from an empty cup. Take care of yourself first so you can continue to work and be present for others.
- Build time into your schedule to indulge in things you love to do and that nourish you.
- Ensure everyone in your household has some alone time.
Establish Good Boundaries
- Healthy boundaries will improve your quality of life and relationships with others.
- Establish working and non-working hours, and honor your word regarding your schedule.
- Clearly communicate guidelines for how and when to reach you outside of these hours if necessary.
Batch Similar Activities Together
- Conserve your energy by limiting the amount of “back and forth” between tasks.
- Maintain focus and dedication to similar tasks so you can ride the momentum and improve efficiency.
- Work in short, focused bursts. Set a consistent time limit, such as 25 minutes and focus on ONE thing. Need a timer? Check out tomato-timer.com.
Get Support From Your Family And Friends
- Ensure a common understanding of everyone’s needs, boundaries, and schedules in your household.
- Ask for help where appropriate.
- Let go of perfectionism. Decide what’s important and what you can let slide.
Prioritize Weekly Tasks
- What are your most important tasks? Do them first each day and the week.
- When you complete prioritized tasks, you’ll be covered if emergencies come up later in the week because you’ve already done the important stuff!
- Do this for both work and personal priorities.
Maintaining harmony and balance in your life is essential for your wellbeing. It means your mind and heart are not being pulled in disparate directions and you can manage all the balls in the air. You feel a sense of calm; you’re grounded and inspired. It is also important for your productivity at work. When you have internal balance and harmony, you have better clarity and focus, which leads to improved productivity – at whatever tasks you do.
Try some of these tips and see what comes up for you.