Balancing Life and Work: Is This Reality?

If you are feeling overworked and finding it more challenging than ever to juggle the demands of your job and the rest of your life, you are not alone. A lot of people are having difficulty finding balance in their lives because there have been cutbacks or layoffs where they work or they may be afraid it may happen to them. But even if you do not have much control over the hours you have to work, you can ask yourself: In what other ways am I bringing greater enjoyment into my life? Focus your time and attention on things you can control. Having a work life balance is your best bet to ensure happiness at work and at home. Certainly, there is plenty of research that suggest that companies and organizations expect more work from fewer employees especially after the large layoffs and downsizings that have occurred over the past few years in many companies and organizations. Sometimes the biggest hurdle to achieving the right balance for you is a resource that we can't buy more of: time. If time is the main culprit preventing you from achieving a work life balance, first do an inventory of everything you are doing that you could do better. Look at eliminating time wasters at work and at home that will free up time that you can use for more beneficial endeavors. Everyone faces the issue of time management at one point or another, but as more and more people deal with working at one or more jobs, fighting long commutes to work, managing a household, attending school or other training, raising children, responding to increasing work and time pressures found in the shrinking workplace, and dealing with aging parents, the days often seem to last long into the night and vacation and leisure time seem to be consumed with issues other than relaxation and personal fulfillment. A recent study of more than 50,000 employees from a variety of manufacturing and service organizations found that two out of every five employees were dissatisfied with the balance between their work and their personal lives. The lack of balance is due to long work hours, changing demographics, more time in the car, the deterioration of boundaries between work and home, and increased work pressure. Are you among the 40% of employees that are dissatisfied with the balance between your work and personal life? How much is work invading your personal life, and how much of your personal life is affected by the stress of trying to balance all the many responsibilities in your life? You have probably heard the old adage that money can't buy happiness, but not having money certainly does not buy happiness either. Your job obviously provides you with income, but no job is worth throwing away your personal life. At the end of the day, if your job requires you to work long hours and/ or weekends that disrupt your personal life, you might either need to figure out how to get the proper work life balance or decide if this is the right job for you. Here are some suggestions to help you get the proper work life balance: 1. Improve your time management. Do you waste time at work that could otherwise be spent on productive tasks? If you spend 20 minutes per day in the smoking area, 20 minutes talking sports with colleagues and 20 minutes making personal phone calls, there is 1 hour you have wasted. …