Work-Life Balance Tips

In today's economy, in which many people feel compelled to work longer hours and shoulder more responsibilities on the job, achieving that elusive work-life balance seems ever more out of reach. Here are some simple work-life balance tips to help you find more time to unwind.

Prioritize Everything

When our jobs are especially demanding, we tend to work reactively rather than proactively, dealing with things as they come at us rather than tackling them in order of their importance. At the end of the day, we can be left with a task that can't wait—so we end up bringing work home. To achieve a proper work-life balance, try to begin each morning by determining which of your duties must be addressed before you can leave for the day, and which could be pushed off until tomorrow.

Prioritizing is essential for home and family life too. "In order to allow more balance in our lives, we need to look at what is competing for our time and see what will stay and what will go," says life coach Denuelle Meyer. Consider spending Friday dinnertime making a priority list for the weekend. Perhaps you'd like to clean the garage on Saturday and go out for brunch on Sunday. Encourage your children to participate, adding their homework and extracurricular activities. Then look at the list and determine the top priorities.

Live in the Moment

"So often people are thinking about work at home and their personal lives at work. The result is more stress and less productivity. Be present and mindful wherever you are," says Elizabeth Lombardo, author of A Happy You: Your Ultimate Prescription for Happiness. If this is difficult for you, try jotting down your life and work concerns as you think of them, then deal with them later, in the appropriate environment.

Get Help From Technology

Put the latest technologies to work for you. Here are some ideas:

Use an online calendar to schedule work, family, and social events in one place. Encourage any groups you belong to (think your book club, or your softball team) to use the same service, so they can add events to your calendar automatically. Two to try: google.com/calendar or famundo.com. 

Sync your home and work computers so you'll never have to discover that the proposal you need to work on over the weekend didn't make it onto your thumb drive. Check out gotomypc.com.

Try software that allows you to track time spent online or working on a particular task. There are programs for everything from keeping tabs of billable hours for a client to limiting the amount of time you spend dawdling on Facebook. Consider online-stopwatch.com; rescuetime.com; or slimtimer.com.

Find Your Own Work-Life Balance

Experiment to find the strategies that work for you. For example, a hard and fast ban on bringing work home may not be the best solution if you'd rather answer business e-mails while your children do their homework than stay late to finish up at the office. If it works, don't feel guilty about it; the goal is a work-life balance that feels right for you and your family.