Despite the demands of any work/industry, it is imperative that workers learn the essence of creating a healthy balance between work and personal lives. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the potency of technology to make the world a global village, making the worker accessible around the clock has very well rendered the concept of work-life balance a Sisyphean task. However, “the compounding stress from the never-ending workday is damaging. It can hurt relationships, health and overall happiness.” Forbes asserts. Work-life imbalance may also affect the overall well-being of the individual, causing such problems as dissatisfaction from life, prolonged sadness, using drugs or alcohol.¹

Monday, the 1st of May, 2023, was observed as International Workers’ Day all over the world: a day set aside to celebrate and acknowledge the efforts of workers all around the world. On this day, every year, we applaud the contributions that all workers, the world over, make to keep the world running. The hard work, effort and grit workers exhibit daily cannot be overemphasised.

For the section of workers who believe their life’s mandate is to work and build mainly a career, they may not be too concerned about the phenomenon of work-life balance. However, for those who may have several other vibrant aspects of their lives, it may be important, healthy even, to create a fine balance.²

But where do we even start? Here are some ways:

1. UNPLUG

In the book of Ecclesiastes in the Holy Bible it teaches that, “there is time for everything under the sun”. Perhaps, this is a good place to start. Considering that technology has made it easy to work from anywhere at any time, work emails or calls could find you at a Saturday evening barbecue or at a serious family meeting. Training yourself to stay in the moment when spending time with family or friends or even with yourself, may be a healthy habit to form. This may mean putting off your phone or putting away any distractions. This may also mean putting boundaries in place in dealing with clients, or colleagues.

2. PRIORITISE/MANAGE YOUR TIME EFFECTIVELY

They say “do what you have to do, to do what you want to do”. Effective management of time, especially at work, will ensure that you get things done on time, during the period allocated for them. Thus, unless it is essential, you may not need to carry work home or carry work into time allocated for other things.

Setting priorities requires you to group your tasks or activities in order of importance and putting the most effort in those at the top of the list, while putting checks in place to ensure that you do not spend resources on the things that distract you. Thus, Forbes recommends, in its article on achieving work-life balance, that if social media or internet surfing, for instance, is what distracts you from productivity at work, you may need to make use of certain tools that help manage your time and keep you from scrolling away.

3. WORK-LIFE BALANCE IS ACHIEVED OVER TIME, NOT EACH DAY

Online business news portal, businessnewsdaily, suggests that there may be no such thing as a ‘perfect work-life balance’. It may be more pragmatic to aim for a realistic life balance than a perfect one, they say. What this means is that, on certain days, your work may demand more of you, and on other days, the demands of your personal life may cause you to make some big adjustments to your work schedule. The most important thing is to be sure what your priorities are at every point in time, and make adjustments as needed while planning to ensure that the other side does not suffer too much or for too long.

Hopefully, reading this article has given you an epiphany, and you want to start making drastic but positive changes to your schedule, in order to achieve a healthy work-life balance. That approach may not be such a great idea, experts say. It is better to start incorporating little changes to begin with instead of employing the psychologists’ flooding therapy principle. The former has a higher chance of being effective and sustainable than the latter.

The concept of work-life balance may have gained central focus most when the COVID pandemic struck, forcing us to reconsider the things in our lives that should be more important than others. It also forced us to begin to have more important conversations about how to  approach work in a way that allows us to have a more meaningful and full life. On the occasion of the month of Workers’ Day, we believe it may be a good time for workers to reflect on these.

¹Delecta, P. (2011). Work life balance. International journal of current research, 3(4), 186-189.
²Lowe, G. S. (2005). Control over time and work-life balance: An empirical analysis. Graham Lowe Group.