Work-life Balance, 7 Tips to Keep Your Life Under Control

Tips you should apply to claim back your free time.

Almost 10 years ago, fresh out of university, I started my first job as an engineer. I have always been the type to do push myself to learn and do more. Being single at that time, expatriate and striving to progress quickly in my technical career, I did not count my working hours, and happily worked late in the evenings and during the weekends, on my own volition.

That served me well in a sense. I learned much more in 1 year than people occupying the same function would usually learn in 2–3 years.

However, I came across people who were constrained to work consistently beyond normal working hours. Evenings, nights, weekends, anytime work could come knock on their doors and they would have to oblige and do it immediately.

I was lucky enough to have an incredibly supportive manager that had respect for her team and was not expecting us to work beyond the regular contractual hours. The only thing that mattered was to get the job done.

That’s when I came to a realization. that I would not always have the chance to report to such understanding people. There will be people who will want to take advantage of you and have no consideration for the fact that you may need rest, that you may need personal time, and that there is not just work in your life.

How can you make sure you keep control of your life? That this famous work-life balance stays in balance, and doesn’t become 90% work-10% life?

Here are the 7 rules that I have defined for myself and try to abide to every single day.

1. No phone calls after working hours

Working hours are what they are, hours during which we are contractually supposed to work. This also means that hours beyond that are not working hours. If you start picking up every work call that you receive after working hours, chances are that people will keep calling you after working hours.

If it is urgent and you haven’t picked up the phone, they’ll leave you a voicemail or a text message, WhatsApp message or any other, and you will know it is. Otherwise, it wasn’t that pressing.

2. No sending emails after working hours

In line with the previous comment, don’t start sending/answering emails after working hours. If you do, then people will assume you are available for work related matters and expect you to reply further or act upon their requests. If you have something bugging your mind and you really need to clear your head, write a draft and send it the next morning.

3. No reading emails after working hours

This one is difficult to do. We all have a smartphone, access to the internet almost permanently, and therefore access to our emails, including work emails. Worse even, you might receive notifications of any work email you receive.

It feels really tempting to read, however you might come across an email that will preoccupy your mind during your off time, and prevent you from enjoying your time with family, friends, or even alone. Smartphones being smart, you can deactivate notifications during certain time periods for applications of your choice. If the notifications are not nudging you every 10 minutes, you will be less likely to check your emails.

4. At the end of your day, if you are in the middle of something, ask yourself these three questions…

Have you ever been in the middle of some work when the bell rings to signal the end of your day? I am sure this is a very familiar feeling to many of you. Now, are you going to keep working until you are done? Or are you going to stop and worry about it later?

Ask yourself three simple question: “How long will it take to finish? Do I really need to finish it now? Can I just continue tomorrow morning?”

If it won’t take you more than 15 minutes to finish, you could decide to keep going. If it would take longer, then are you going to be sufficiently focused to complete it appropriately? Is it really necessary to complete it now, instead of the next morning?

By experience, most of the time when I tried to finish something in a hurry at the end of the day to not postpone it to the next day, I would mess up something. I would then waste my precious evening time, and I still have to fix it the next day. Why not just do it properly the next day then?

If you are really insisting on completing your on-going tasks, make sure that you don’t get distracted by any colleague working overtime and asking you last minute questions or wanting to chit-chat because they have nothing better to do. You have better things to do, so get done with it and step away from work!

5. Weekends, days off and vacations… are not working days

Some people may attempt to guilt trip you and making you work during your weekend, days off or vacations. Do yourself a favor, just don’t.

First, you will feel guilty of wasting your precious time off working instead of having quality time with your family. Second, you will not rest appropriately, which could impact negatively your state of mind and performance when you are actually at work.

Do you have some unfinished business and you are going on vacation for a few weeks? See how much you can handle before leaving, and if you can hand over to your colleagues. You could return the favor in exchange. Is it really so critical that you have to work to complete? Try planning ahead and ensure that you don’t plan your vacations during critical times. If you can, postpone your time off to a time when you can properly enjoy it. But please, don’t let it go to waste!

6. Always define an auto-reply on your emails while you are gone

An auto-reply is the best way to tell people that you are not accessible and that they should give up on disturbing you while you are taking well deserved rest. Make sure to provide contacts to the relevant people that can handle matters in your absence. Your sender will know who to address and business will continue even if you’re not here. Provide also clear dates when you will be unavailable. As long as people are aware that you are not available, they will not expect you to reply.

Just setup your auto-reply, relax and start worrying about work only when you’re back at it!

7. Some exceptions are ok, as long as they remain exceptions

Well, I would be a liar if I told you that you will be able to strictly apply all these rules in all circumstances. There are always situations where you might need to have after-hour phone calls, email communications, last minute extra work to complete. However, make sure that these remain occasional, and as seldom as possible.

All these suggestions might sound like common sense, but I can clearly see many people around me that did not define their boundaries and become miserable.

Work-life balance is a very difficult thing to maintain, it usually easily falls to the work side.

Not all employers/managers will be considerate and try to help you maintain your work-life balance, so take ownership of your well-being and start applying those rules!