Why Work Life Balance Is Important And How You Can Make Adjustments

It’s always a hot topic at any time in your working career – juggling work life balance. Today on the Typical Business Podcast, I wanted to spend some time sharing my thoughts on why work life balance is important. Once you’ve identified that life might be a little out of balance, it’s then going to be a little challenging to get things back on track. Perhaps a close friend or family member or loved one has said you’re too focused on work. Or perhaps that little voice inside has been prompting you. Either way, you’re starting to listen and that’s a good thing. It’s the first step you need to take before you can really make effective changes. Now that you’re here, I’ve shared 5 steps to help you make adjustments if and when you need to. Like many of us, you may identify yourself closely with what it is you do as a profession. Business owners are especially guilty of this. But I think it can be very unhealthy and I’ll share why below. But first; It’s Time To Open My Toolkit One of my favourite tools is my Fujitsu ScanSnap Scanner with OCR which I love for these reasons; Small, doesn’t take up much space. Allows me to scan everything quickly then shred the originals. Allows easy editing before I archive the document. Can set it up for character recognition for easy search later. This Episodes Book Review – Rework by Jason Fried and David Hansson This book addresses a lot of ideals about business and challenges them and puts them in a new light. Some chapters include; Learning from mistakes is overrated. Planning is guessing. Start a business, not a startup. Ignore the details early on. Meetings are toxic. My rating – 5/5 stars. Everyone in business should read this book. This Weeks Feature Topic on the Typical Business Podcast; Why Work Life Balance Is Important And How You Can Make Adjustments I share a few tragic stories of people I’ve known who heavily identified themselves with their work, without giving enough regard for their life outside of work. Unfortunately, in these cases it resulted in their demise. I don’t want to get preachy on you, but I felt it was appropriate to share a great scripture from the bible that says ‘What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?’ Your soul is better defined as your heart. It’s the place where you feel love and affection for others. It’s what holds all of your dreams and passions. It is, in essence, YOU. Who YOU are and what YOU believe. So if I were to rephrase this scripture I would say; “What good is it to attain your financial goals, but in doing so lose everything else that is dear to you.” One of my friends and mentors used to say; “There’s no prize for being the richest man in the graveyard” – Laurie Fitzgerald So what adjustments can we make to have a better work life balance? If you’ve identified that work life balance is important, here are my 5 recommended steps that will help you; Step 1: Spend time with the people you care about. Q: What is the most important thing in life? A: People. So your first step is to work out how to invest more of your time with the people you care most about outside of your work environment. Step 2: Consider those less fortunate This step helps us stay grateful for everything we currently DO have. This is really important for Step 3. Step 3: Step back from the rat race and Ignore the Joneses. You know what I mean right? The rat race is where we’re all scurrying to get somewhere in a hurry – with lots of outward pressure. That pressure often comes from our peers or, the Joneses. I say Damn the Joneses! What they think doesn’t matter! Step 4: Cut down your working hours to a reasonable amount of time. There’s always more work to do. Don’t kid yourself – you could work 24/7 and still find there’s more to do. Your working hours as a business owner is a choice. It’s YOUR choice. Choosing to spend time elsewhere is healthy. Step 5: Give time to a hobby. If you don’t have any hobbies, that’s also fine. But be sure to give time to something else that might interest you or that you enjoy. This is really ‘you time’. And it’s vital to keeping your work life balance in order. Here’s your Typical Business Tweet – just click it to share it on Twitter: “There’s no prize for being the richest man in the graveyard” – Laurie Fitzgerald via @typicalbusiness I hope this podcast answered why work life balance is important. Most of all, I hope these 5 action steps above will help you create an identity beyond what you do for a living. So help us out… does this relate to you? Are you struggling with your work life balance? Perhaps you’ve worked out your own priority system – share it with us in the comments below. The post Why Work Life Balance Is Important And How You Can Make Adjustments appeared first on Typical Business.