Candor Blog

This is always difficult to write about the importance of maintaining a healthy work-life balance because this is something you can’t see and usually you can’t notice either until you reach to a level from where you can’t come back to your normal life without assistance from experts e.g. doctors, psychologist etc. Here in this article, I will try to mention two most important symptoms/signs that indicate that you are “burnout” or about to “burnout” and seriously need to think and take actions on your work-life balance or ask for assistance.

Happiness: Are you happy with your work and personal life? If yes, then that’s a good sign that you are having a good work-life balance. As long as you are happy with both your work and personal life, there is nothing to worry about. But, if you are not happy about something, either with your work or personal life, then this is the very first indication that you seriously need a “break” to rethink/analyze/figure out the source of your unhappiness. Take a few days/weeks vacations, don’t check your work emails or receive phone calls when you are on vacation, and stay home or travel somewhere else. Then, the next step is to analyze your days/weeks/months/years in a way that what was your aim in life or what you wanted to achieve in the past months/years and how much you achieved, and why failed to achieve your target. This is very important to be able to do the reasoning yourself and figure out the causes. If you can figure out the reasons behind your failures, then the solution is just one step away; all you need is to prioritize and take actions towards your goal. If you need help from someone else e.g. your boss or colleagues, don’t hesitate to talk to them. Tell your boss in a nice way that you think that these are reasons/issues/things you think are making you stressed and less efficient at work, and you want to try things differently to increase your efficiency/productivity at work. Also, it’s a good idea to talk to someone higher up in the organization about how they maintain work-life balance and what strategies worked for them.

In the case of unhappiness in your personal life, try to figure out the reasons that made you or your partner or family unhappy, write down those issues, and try to solve one by one or at least the most important ones first. One good strategy is to talk to people, share what you think and tell them that you didn’t do well in something and you want to improve those aspects and asks for their help (if needed). Make it clear to the other person so the other person will understand it clearly; it’s important to express yourself properly to avoid any possible misunderstanding.

Lack of sleep and/or sleepless night(s): Are you experiencing a lack of sleep or sleepless nights. If so, then it’s time to make some changes in your lifestyle to improve your sleep quality. We body is like machines (I would say “machines” here to better explain the facts), it needs good food, enough rest, mental refreshments, and a healthy lifestyle function efficiently in the long run. For humans, sleep is a must activity to allow our body and brain to rest and recover, and also to prepare our self for the next day. Try to avoid taking sleeping pills without physicians (doctors) prescription; taking sleeping pills is not the solution to your sleepless nights. One easy way is to figure out the things that disturb your sleep at night. For example, if you work late, and even just before you go to bed, then you might experience that you can’t fall asleep and your mind/brain keeps thinking about work, then you should try not to work at least 2-3 hours before going to bed. Also, try not to check work emails before going to sleep. You should understand that if you don’t get enough sleep at night, there is a high chance that you will feel irritated during the day, which will reduce your efficiency, and as a result, you will work late or won’t be able to finish your task within time; all these will continue in a cyclic process, and will take a few weeks/months for you to realize that you are having a lack of sleep or sleepless nights.

Enough of symptoms for now; let’s talk about some of the tips to maintain a healthy work-life balance to be happy both at work and personal life and get enough sleep at night. Since this article is already quite long, so I will write about tips in a new post/article. Read more here on this link on tips for maintaining healthy work-life balance.