MBR_Issue_27 -January 2017 low res

Malta Business Review
BEST PRACTICE
8 Best Practices for
Improving Your Work-Life Balance
By Paul Petrone
MALTA’S BEST ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR AWARDS
SMARTCITY MALTA | FRIDAY, 30 TH JUNE
2017
MALTA’S
BEST
ENTREPRENEUR
OF THE YEAR
AWARDS
2017
MALTA’S LARGEST AND INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNISED BUSINESS AWARDS
Make 2017 the year where your personal life and professional life are finally treated equally.
Work-life balance is the Yeti of the professional world – often discussed but rarely seen. And even
the people who have claim to seen it, well, you probably don’t believe them anyway.
In reality though, it is achievable. It’s just a skill, and like any other skill, there are best practices
you need to learn to master it. Good thing for us, “Chaos Crusher” Dave Crenshaw has spent
his career studying work-life balance to uncover those best practices, which he shared in his
LinkedIn Learning course, Balancing Work and Life.
Eight of those best practices are:
1
Create a line in the sand between
work and personal time.
A “line in the sand” is the time each day where you
stop your work and start your personal life each
day, Crenshaw said in his course.
Not everyone needs the same “line in the sand”
– for some people it might be 6 or 7, for some
people it might be 4:30 and then back to work
from 8 to 8:45, and then off again. The point is to
have a clear line and honor it, Crenshaw said.
2
Schedule power-down time
between that line in the sand.
Once you hit your “line in the sand”, you should
have some power-down time where you don’t
immediately take up family responsibilities,
Crenshaw said. For many people, this is the
commute, where Crenshaw said it is essential to
focus your mind on non-work related thoughts.
If you don’t have a commute or your commute
is short, there are other options. For example,
you could exercise or do a hobby, Crenshaw said.
Whatever you do, this 30-minute-or-so powerdown
time will give you more energy for the rest
of the day.
3
Create a tech-free sanctuary.
One of the biggest threats to a good work-life
balance is our phones and tablets, which are
constantly buzzing with new texts and work
emails. If you aren’t careful, you’ll get swallowed
up by all these updates and essentially be working
all the time.
To fix that, Crenshaw recommends having a tech-
free sanctuary in your house. Maybe it’s your
bedroom, so you aren’t checking email before bed.
Also, when you are with your family, you should do
your best to stay off your phone, Crenshaw said.
This will make that time higher quality and it sends
a message that they come first, not work.
4
Use just one calendar.
One problem Crenshaw sees again and again is
that people have multiple calendars – say one for
work and one for personal – or no calendar at all.
A better solution is to have just one calendar, he
said.
The reason is that you are just one person and
you only have so much time in a week. By having
one calendar, you hammer home that point home,
Crenshaw said. Also, it’s easier to stay organised
that way.
5
And don’t schedule every minute
of that calendar.
Along those lines, Crenshaw recommended not
trying to fill up every minute of your calendar with
tasks, meetings and appointments. Instead, give
yourself time to handle the unexpected or even
just to give you time to reflect.
6
Schedule your vacations well in
advance and make a plan.
Often, before we go on vacation, we work more
and our work-life balance is thrown out-of-whack.
To fix this, Crenshaw recommends scheduling your
vacations as far in advance as possible and then
planning accordingly.
It’s also essential to keep your vacations free
of work. This will actually allow you to be more
productive when you get back, as often your best
ideas come when you aren’t so consumed by the
daily grind.
7
Proactively schedule time when you
are hit with something unexpected.
We all have unexpected events in our lives,
whether they be positive or negative, which can
drastically change your work-life balance. Using a
positive example, your business suddenly booming
is a great thing, but it can also mean more work
and therefore affect your work-life balance.
How should you handle unexpected events like
this?
First, acknowledge the unexpected event and
realize the impact it’s going to have on your time.
Then go to your calendar and literally schedule
time to allow yourself to either process that
unexpected event (if it’s negative) or make time for
it (if it’s positive). The quicker you can make a plan
for dealing with whatever the unexpected event is,
the better you’ll be able to handle it.
8
Focus on results, not busyness.
Finally, Crenshaw said the biggest key to having
a great work-life balance is changing your
perception. And that means focusing on results,
instead of busyness.
For example, you aren’t successful because you
work 10 hours a day or even if you are a top-five
salesperson at your company if that’s affecting
other parts of your life. You’re successful if you
are getting positive outcomes in all areas, meaning
happiness in your job and happiness in your
personal life.
That means valuing both your personal and
professional time equally. The quicker you do that,
the quicker you’ll attain a lasting work-life balance.
Along with time management and other business
skills, LinkedIn Learning has thousands of courses
on the latest tech and creative tools. MBR
Credit: LinkedIn Learning
CELEBRATING
6 YEARS
OF ENTREPRENEUR
EXCELLENCE
INFO
FOR FURTHER
INFORMATION PLEASE
CONTACT
Margaret Brincat
• M: 9940 6743
•
VISION, GROWTH AND PEOPLE
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