Has it been difficult for you to balance your work and your life? Or did the goal to establish a work-life balance become a distant dream and you have surrendered yourself to your busy schedule? In this article, we will discuss with you why work life balance is important?
Currently, the need to know why work life balance is important is even more since work hours have become unpredictable due to the pandemic. Understanding why work life balance is important is also a necessity for you to create the balance.
What is Work-Life Balance?
Work-life balance ensures that you can make an impact at work without sacrificing your health and happiness. It is about being present at your family events and being an active parent. All this is to be done while maintaining boundaries, being able to think at the moment, and letting go of the thought of having it all. Thus, knowing why work life balance is important is simply managing your work, and personal life in such a way that there are no regrets. Therefore, this balance depends completely on your mindset. You need to work and find this balance and maintain it.
Why Work Life Balance is Important?
Since work-life balance depends on your mindset, it is something that you have to create and not something that you can find anywhere. Now, if you are wondering why work life balance is important, the answer is here!
- Less Stress
If you are taking the responsibility for more work than you should then you are only increasing the stress in your life. Workplace stress can cause a person to lose their motivation and struggle mentally and emotionally. If you don’t have a proper work-life balance, this thing will cause you a lot of problems later. So, to know why work life balance is important, you have to learn to say no and delegate.
The choice is in your hands. You are only one person and there is only so much that you can do. So take a step and say no when it becomes too much, and delegate the work that can be done by someone else. This way you will have more time which will decrease your stress and anxiety levels. - Improved Mental Health
The second reason to explain why work life balance is important is your mental health. When there is a balance, it gives you the power to deal with the negativity as well. Our brain is a strong yet delicate organ. It isn’t supposed to go through so much stress. The balance will allow you to have some space to think. You will develop a better understanding of your emotions, thoughts, and feelings and will be able to deal with them. - Better Physical Health
If your mental health is improving, your physical health will automatically go through the positive effects of this change. You will develop healthy sleeping habits, you will have the motivation for regular exercise and healthy meals will seem interesting.
Moreover, if you have a demanding career that keeps you busy all the time, the proper balance will also give you the chance to take off the edge. Human beings aren’t creatures to be cooped up. Now, even though the pandemic makes it harder for us to go out, you can still exercise and move about at home, keeping yourself physically and mentally healthy. - Being present in the moment
Did you ever feel like your mind is always racing and cluttering with thoughts, or no matter what you are doing your mind is still stuck on work, or you are worried about your personal life while you are working? If yes, that means you are in dire need of creating this balance. We all know that focusing on one job at a time brings us the best results. Plus, you cannot really enjoy your time relaxing if you are always thinking about work. - Improved Relationships
A balance between work and life will also allow you to completely focus on your relationships. It means that the time you are spending with them is devoid of work thoughts, which would both make them happy, and in turn you happy too. This is also one of the major reasons why work-life balance is important.
Now there might also be situations when you are spending some quality time and the notification of a work email took your attention. To avoid such circumstances, you can use email management apps like Mailman. Mailman comes with a feature called “Do Not Disturb” which ensures that you are not disturbed by any emails for the time that you choose. - More Engagement in Work
Now if you have a work-life balance, it means less stress for you as an employee, and this, in turn, means that you will be happy and motivated to do the job. A happy and motivated employee also means that they will be loyal and engaged to their job, committed to doing their best.
However, it is a misconception if you believe that engagement can be brought in by incentives and pressure. Sure, they can be a driving factor for us to work harder, but too much of it builds up resentment, anxiety, and stress. That doesn’t help you in the longer term at all. When the employees can work freely, with less stress and with proper mental and physical health, he or she will be motivated to give their best performance. - Increased Creative Thinking
Apart from your work, surely you are interested in some other field as well which makes the creative cells of your brain work. Your brain needs space to think and for that it needs free time, when it is not disturbed by people, email, social media, phone calls, and texts.
You can ask the people around you to give you space. However, in the case of email notifications, you might think it is not in your hands, except it is. With email management apps like Mailman, you can use the “Do Not Disturb” feature to not disturb you for a certain period. There are also other features like “Batch Delivery” and “Delivery Slot” that allow you to receive emails at a certain time set by you. - Productivity, Happiness and High Level of Success
If you have noticed, more or less all the benefits are related to stress. Less stress means more happiness; more happiness means that you can urge yourself to be more productive. Finally, more productivity means more success in your workplace as well as your life, which in turn also means happiness. So, it is a cycle that will only make your life happier.
Acknowledging why work life balance is important
Hopefully, these points were enough to explain to you why work life balance is important. Now that you know this, the question is how to develop this work-life balance? Don’t worry; we have got that covered too. You need to take control of a few things in order to build this balance. These things include –
- Prioritize carefully. Don’t worry about the things which are not your priority.
- Build boundaries.
- Be more present and think at the moment.
- Have some control over your career path.
- Simplify the life you lead.
- Delegate, don’t take more than you can handle.
- Your wellbeing, both physical and mental, comes first.
- Always use some productivity tool like Mailman for better performance.
Work life balance is the act of dividing time between one’s personal and professional lives.
1. Assess your strengths and weaknesses.
2. Prioritize your personal time also.
3. Sketch out the amount of time you spend on each task.
4. Set work hours for yourself.
5. Use productivity tools to help maintain work life balance.
1. Better health
2. More peaceful mental space.
3. Happier relationships
4. Higher productivity and time efficiency
5. Better rest.
1. Time balance: Refers to equal time being given to both work and non-work roles
2. Involvement balance: Refers to equal levels of psychological involvement in both work and family roles
3. Satisfaction balance: Refers to equal levels of satisfaction in both work and family roles