This article is based on a more comprehensive one published by Nina Grunfeld in the Daily Telegraph. It tries to make you get more organized and efficient with your work and life (free time).
What would a work/life balance look like in your life? How could you fit your work into less time than you already do? Are you organized? Are you efficient?
Find what you like! Have you lost sight of your identity outside work? Is there something that you are so passionate about that you can't wait to do it? Even when you're on holiday work can dominate. When you actually have some free time, what are you doing? Are you relaxed and in holiday mode? Or your mind is still at work? It shouldn't be! Do you know what relaxes you and what you really enjoy?
Find the reasons why work takes over! For some of us it's in our personality - we just really like working. Others of us may be working so hard because we fear what will happen at work if we don't. Or maybe we fear the boredom of home. Maybe we're overly ambitious, or poor at setting priorities and imagine that unless we work 24 hours a day, we won't achieve what we have to. Or perhaps we've just lost touch with the idea that we could do something as well as work.
Find out what you really want from life! To achieve this think of all the aspects of it (friends, rest and relaxation, love and romance, health and fitness, family, creativity etc) and whether you're giving each aspect the time you want to. Write down all the aspects you can think of and then give each of them two percentages. The first percentage is roughly the amount of time you spend on each aspect. The second is how much satisfaction you derive from each. Try it!
Learn to say "No"! How good are you at saying "No"? What can't you say "No" to at work that really isn't a priority? What can't you say "No" to at home? Are you constantly doing things for others that aren't part of your life remit? It's essential that you say "No" to a project if there's a priority that's crucial to your team, or "No" to your mother if you promised your other half that you'd do something together.
Plan your life at home as you do it at work! Perhaps you thrive on the structures, schedules and deadlines of work, and at home find yourself lost without a plan. What's stopping you from creating plans like that for home? Why not use your strengths from work at home, too? If you're very sociable, arrange regular gatherings - neighbors, friends and book clubs. If you're competitive, organize matches. If you're organized, plan something. If you like being told what to do, get someone to tell you what to do. Ensure you're as busy at home as you are at work. Decide what it is that makes your work-life successful and use these work skills at home, too.
Work only at work! The reason we often work obsessively is our fear that if we don't we'll worry about it, even when we've left our workplace. The solution is to make some mental acrobatics so you worry about work at work, rather than all the time.
When doing something be there mentally as well as physically! Get into the present and leave your cares behind. If you have only an hour to read or play with your children or play tennis, be there mentally as well as physically. You're more likely to have that "light-bulb moment" about work by focusing on the present than by worrying about the future.
Make a ToDo list every day! Write down all your worries every night! First clear your head of the day by writing about it and then write a list of the things you want to achieve the next day. That frees you up to sleep well at night, which is essential if you want to be able to focus on your life as well as your work. You will probably find that most worries are to do with work or people and writing those down, and then making a to-do list is very liberating. When you've finished, put a line underneath it and go to sleep. The best is to have this ToDo list in front of your desk or even better on your computer desktop. See how Efigio ToDo Organizer can help you! It works best if you schedule in all those things you're not naturally adept at doing, such as financial management or replying to emails, as well as all those things you want to do and enjoy doing.