Professional life/personal life : Find your balance
The balance between private and professional life is one of the main concerns of most executives. Between work, family, friends, and leisure activities, the executive can often feel overwhelmed.
It is yet necessary to give each of these elements their rightful place, at the risk of being burned out. While there is no magic formula to finding the perfect balance, harmonizing work and private life is of prime importance for your well-being and efficiency.
A good organization at work
If you are not organized at work, you will never have enough time to achieve your professional goals. You will always be overloaded with work and never have a minute to devote to yourself.
To free up some time for personal activities, you need to be well organized professionally:
Prioritize: prioritizing what you have to do will allow you to address first what is important, and then what is less essential, or what can be addressed later. Thereby, daily, you will identify the tasks that need to be tackled first and focus your energy on them.
One of the most effective practices is of course to delegate: delegating certain tasks to people you trust will help you to do more in less time, with less stress.
Know how to say no to others and yourself
In reality, having time for one’s personal life is more a matter of decision than availability.
We all enjoy a 24-hour day, no more and no less. But, those who manage to devote some time to their family, friends, or themselves are, quite simply, those who have decided to do so.
First of all, plan your free time. Your personal activities should not be unforeseen events but should hold a space in your agenda in the same way your business appointments do. Valuable moments. It’s not so much the length of these moments that counts, but their quality.
They must truly be moments of enjoyment, no matter what you do. It can be sports, a bit of reading, a meal with family or friends, or simply nothing, doing nothing at all, total idleness.
Then, learn to switch off from work. With technology becoming embedded in the smallest of daily activities, it is easy to become dependent, or even a slave, to your phone or laptop.
You have to have the courage to take the upper hand and declare an amount of time (an hour or a day) during which you are simply UNAVAILABLE. During this time, there is no email or phone call that you must answer to.
Finally, you should leave any personal activity that is a source of stress to third parties.
Unless tinkering or doing household chores are ways for you to unwind, use outside service providers to fix a water leak, iron, or clean. Furthermore, you can delegate your errands and have them delivered straight to your office or home.
Seek the help of a coach
Being coached can be very helpful in finding the method that suits you best.
Being able to put a little more time aside for yourself and your loved ones may require reshaping your professional activities to adapt them to your professional and personal priorities.
In this respect, the impartial and unbiased perspective of a coach can be of great help. Together, you will be able to work on an ideal distribution of your time, to help you allocate more time to activities with high added value.
Being more efficient, you will reach your professional goals and be in a better headspace to spend quality time with your loved ones. It is entirely possible to be an effective leader without sacrificing family, friends, and leisure time. Achieving balance is an everyday job that requires organization and firmness.
Even if you can’t get home every night at 6 p.m. or play sports three times a week, don’t feel guilty. Focus on the quality of those moments spent alone or with your loved ones.
