How To Improve Work Life Balance While Working From Home
Work-life balance is important for all employees, however remote workers find it especially challenging. Maintaining a healthy work and life balance is tough when they both happen in the same physical space. If you are a remote worker, you may have sought out how to improve work-life balance while working from home.
The strategy that will work best for you depends on your situation and personality. To find the perfect fit that will help you thrive in your career and personal life, you should know what your options are.
Finding Harmony: How To Improve Work Life Balance While Working From Home
Maintaining a work-life balance is important for every employee. In fact, if the employees have a good work-life balance, employers can benefit too. Some of the benefits of knowing how to improve work life balance while working from home include:
- Higher productivity
- Lower absenteeism
- Better physical health
- Healthier mental state
- Increased motivation to work
- Higher work commitment
- Better personal relationships
- Increased happiness and life satisfaction
The impact of work from home on work life balance is substantial. The latest statistics show that remote workers find it hard to unplug.
Other challenges that come with working from home, and could contribute to an unhealthy work-life relationship, are loneliness, social isolation, having a hard time staying motivated, difficulty focusing, and staying at home too often.
If you are considering work from home job offers, you must find the best strategy on how to separate work and personal life while working from home. Instead of wasting time trying out different techniques, you should experiment with the following methods that are proven to be effective.
Source: shutterstock.com / Photo Contributor: MT-R
Establishing boundaries
Establishing boundaries is a great way to improve work life balance. The type of boundaries you have to set depends on the type of job and your personality.
In particular, you have to focus on creating three types of boundaries: emotional, time-related, and mental. With emotional boundaries, you have to ensure you are not letting what happens at work influence your mood or personal time and vice versa.
If you are working from home, it might be the case that you also have flexible hours. While that can be a huge advantage, it might be a challenge for procrastinators.
Hence, setting time boundaries and specific work hours is recommended. This will help you have enough time to do things you like in your free time, without worrying about work. Don’t forget to use breaks to recharge and take care of yourself.
Mental boundaries are extremely important for all remote workers. In simple terms, you should be able to disconnect from your work when you clock out and continue with your personal life without any interruptions.
Create a routine that works for you. Aim to bring your maximum when at work, but at the same time, do your best not to neglect your personal life.
How to set clear boundaries
To set boundaries that will improve your work life balance, you should:
- Identify priorities
- Understand your workload and delegate tasks
- Take time off when you need it
- Seek advice when you are having trouble with something
- Set personal limits
- Create a realistic schedule
- Establish boundaries with colleagues and people who live with you
Time management techniques
Implementing effective time-management strategies should be your priority if you want to maximize your productivity, all the while leaving time for personal activities. There are different ways to organize your working hours, and some of them include:
- Start your working hours with a plan for the day, including the tasks you should do
- Use the POSEC (prioritize, organize, streamline, economize, and contribute) method for organizing your tasks
- Track the time you need to finish certain tasks
- If possible, avoid multitasking and focus on one task at a time
Self-care practices
If you’re asking yourself — how can I improve my work-life balance — you should know that not everything revolves around your work. You should incorporate self-care practices into your daily routines. Studies have shown the psychological well-being of employees influences their work performance and productivity.
So, if you want to be successful at work while being mentally and physically healthy, you should do things that relax you and make you happy. For some, that is exercising or spending time with friends and family; for others, it is meditating and eating healthy.
Source: shutterstock.com / Photo Contributor: fizkes
Physically separating the working and living space
The human mind is extraordinary. How your mind perceives your day and activities may have a significant influence on your well-being. Hence, it is recommended to physically separate your working and living space.
As one of the most effective work life balance strategies, physically separating your working and relaxation areas sets a mental boundary between your work-related tasks and personal life.
Having a designated area in your home just for work will likely enhance your focus and productivity during working hours. In addition, having a home office only for work will minimize distractions and create a feeling that you are actually working on-site.
Fostering personal relationships
Fostering personal relationships is another way to explore how to maintain work life balance while working from home effectively. Whether you love going out or would rather spend your free time casually hanging out with your loved ones, you should make plans after work.
Remote work fatigue happens more often than you might think. By hanging out with people you like when you are not online, you can combat isolation. At the same time, you will contribute to your work-life balance by socially interacting with other people and feeling fulfilled.
Signs Your Work-Life Balance Needs Improvement
It is not all about knowing how to maintain a work-life balance when working from home. People often get stuck in a rut and can’t recognize they don’t have a healthy work-life balance. Some of the common signs include:
- Having a lot of overtime
- Neglected personal relationships
- Constant physical, mental, or emotional exhaustion
- Being stressed most of the time
- Experiencing signs of burnout
- Feeling irritable frequently
- Decreased focus and productivity
Source: shutterstock.com / Photo Contributor: Kite_rin
Let Your Personal and Professional Life Thrive by Working for Afni
Your employer can have a great influence on your work-life balance. There are many companies out there that want their employees to be available 24/7, willing to work overtime, and sacrifice their personal life for a career. Your initial strategy on how to improve work life balance while working from home is to carefully pick your employers.
One of the biggest companies with open positions to work from home is Afni. The company has one of the best cultures that allows employees to grow both personally and professionally.
The Afnimazing culture, as we like to call it, focuses on rewarding and caring for the employees. Our priority is creating a fun, bold, and successful workplace where employees can create meaningful connections.
There are three main Afni centers in the U.S., Mexico, and the Philippines, with multiple locations throughout the country. We constantly have open job positions in different industries, such as receivables management, insurance, sales, customer service, marketing, finance, and many more. Check out our website and see whether we currently have any positions that match your qualifications and skills.
Author
Samantha Byard is the Recruitment Marketing Manager for Afni and brings a wealth of knowledge and tips for job seekers. She holds a bachelor's degree in public relations and marketing from Mount Saint Vincent University as well as a masters degree in digital marketing and advertising from Liberty University.
