Achieving work-life balance

You may have put years of sweat equity into your career, have a solid two decades of experience under your belt, and one day you end up answering to an inexperienced manager just a few years older than your first-born child. Without even thinking about it, you bring that frustration home in the evening, letting your feelings about your new boss ruin dinnertime.

It?s hard to be in the moment?? to enjoy time with your family ? when you bring the stressors of work home with you. Aside from what?s on your mind, many busy professionals have trouble ignoring their Blackberry and work-related tasks outside of office hours. For many people, the boundary between work and home isn?t as clear as their families might prefer.

The dissolving boundary between home and work

People who work ?normal business hours? and need to take care of a home or family issue during the day often must use work time to make a phone call or attend an appointment. That lost time must be made-up somehow, but often, people overcompensate and do more work at home than needed. Many social scientists point to cellphones as creating a constant tether to the workplace, resulting in an unhealthy compulsion to check work emails, voicemails or text messages at all hours of the day.

Creating balance

This difficulty in staying on top of personal business without creating conflicts at work has caught the attention of some businesses. Some utility companies, for example, have expanded their hours into the early evenings or even offer Saturday hours, to accommodate people with demanding schedules. Others have encouraged customers to use websites or?smartphone apps to obtain necessary information and keep up with account information.

Employers have demonstrated alternative strategies for helping employees reach a balance. On one side, some companies have begun to encourage employees to make their available hours public and to?turn off work cellphones and?avoid responding to email on personal time. But some technology can actually help busy professionals connect with family. Skype, for example, allows people traveling for business to communicate in real-time video with loved ones.

Everyone should develop their own methods of?depressurizing?from work and?creating a boundary between work and personal life. If necessary, use separate cellphones for business and personal life. Limit distractions at work to ensure maximum productivity, which means you?ll bring home less work. If you still have trouble finding balance, consider whether the demands of the job are unreasonable.

The take-home message

Technology has undoubtedly allowed a blurring of the distinction between home and work. Without a separation between the two, it?s impossible to be fully productive at work or fully enjoy time with family. Employers need to recognize and address these issues before problems arise, and employees need to develop a solution applicable to their position and needs. You, your family and your employer will be happier with the results of your reasonable time-management and creation of boundaries.

Source: http://carrieanddanielle.com/achieving-work-life-balance/

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