Is It Possible to Maintain a Work-Life Balance While Being Highly Productive?
Is It Possible to Maintain a Work-Life Balance While Being Highly Productive?
There is a limit to how much you can achieve, no matter how good the tool you use is. And that is the limit beyond which you tip into mental and physical exhaustion, or burnout.
The work-life balance has been a matter of serious debate for a while now. The COVID-19 pandemic further accentuated the problem when entire teams and companies were forced to shift to a working-from-home situation. Though there are perks of working in the comfort of your home, it does become increasingly hard to separate the professional and the personal or family life.
This is truer in the case of people living in a busy household or with a lot of stress.
Room for Entertainment
There have been many research papers from leading universities that claim that taking a break from work increases overall productivity and output. When employees return to work, they can focus better. Apart from that, it also helps with the mental health and well-being of the employees.
Research aside, there have been many real-world cases where large companies have created fun and interactive workplace environments, most notably Google, Microsoft, and Meta. Whereas the idea seemed to be to confine people in cubicles to increase their focus, we have learned today that it’s not the best way to work.
As such, there’s a great need for entertainment in daily life to improve productivity. If you attempt to do all work and no play, you will suffer serious burnout and your productivity will decrease over time. The world is full of things to do to take your mind off work or take a break. Everything from playing a sport to having your own woodworking setup in the garage is fair game. To unwind, we’ve found that games, particularly work well.
Competitive games or esports are often too stressful sometimes and single-player ones will end one day, having you buy a new one which is another decision that you want to avoid. That’s why perpetual games are better to unwind properly.
Most reputable casinos have a sizeable selection of games. These can help unwind while providing a steady challenge as well. The most notable among these are table or card games, with blackjack being one of the most popular options. It can be akin to learning a new language or trade skills. And when you understand, experiment, and improve, you get a sense of achievement that will boost your confidence. Achievements like these will make you more productive when you return to work.
And blackjack isn’t the only game! You have scores of options to choose from.
What sets such games apart from, let’s say, traditional video games or personal hobbies is that there is a thriving community to welcome you and the experience is quite social. But don’t take our word for it. Look around and find something that strikes your fancy, a table card game or not.
Boundaries & Priorities
It’s important to set boundaries for yourself and identify your priorities. Let’s look at some actionable intelligence you can use to do both:
Setting Boundaries
Clear boundaries between work and personal life help you out in a big way. This includes setting specific working hours, having a different work setup or an entire room, and avoiding the urge to bring work-related tasks into your personal time.
A good way to achieve all this is ensuring proper exercise and sleep. Both can increase your happiness and improve your memory, allowing you to focus better on day-to-day tasks as well as work-related ones.
It’s one thing to set these boundaries and another to communicate them to your family and coworkers so they are aware of and can respect them.
Prioritizing
If employees don’t prioritize work apps over unproductive ones, then employers can learn about that using timeTracko. But what if you’re an employee who wants to be productive but simply fails?
That’s where prioritizing comes into play. Take a step back and look at your average day. What does it look like? Any red flag or a habit that sticks out as unproductive?
A thorough analysis can help you figure out what to improve more often than you think. After that, you can easily make a mind map or an actual list to prioritize tasks and set realistic deadlines for them.
Parting Remarks
Increasing your workday productivity while balancing your work and personal life might seem like a challenging task—But with a few right steps and the correct mindset, you can do wonders.
For employers, we have a simple tip: Respect the balance and privacy of the employees and team members during non-working hours or we might need to legislate Europe’s Right to Disconnect for every workspace soon!