How’s Your Work Life Balance?
Do you feel that you’re spending too much time at work and there must be more to life – perhaps you need to improve your work/life balance? Here’s a quick exercise to see how balanced your life is.
Score each of the eight areas of your life. Taking the centre of the wheel as 0 (completely dissatisfied) and the outer edge as 10 (completely satisfied), rate each area from 1-10 and mark each section. If this was the wheel on a bicycle, how ‘smooth’ would your ride be? If one of these is seriously out of balance, you’ll be tired, stressed and unhappy.
If you were to choose just one area to start making changes, which would it be?
- What would you need to do to make it a 9-10?
- How would life be different for you if you had this?
- What would you do differently if there were nothing stopping you?
- What’s holding you back?
Depending on which area you need to focus, here are a few tips and suggestions.
- Health – being fit, healthy and well. Are you a healthy weight for your height? How physically active are you – do you take regular exercise? Do you have a healthy diet – limited intake of sugar, caffeine, alcohol and processed food? When was the last time you visited the dentist, got your eyes tested, checked your blood
pressure? - Money – having enough to meet your needs. Do you know what it is that you need on a monthly basis? Do you have any large credit card bills or loans? Do you save 10% of you income? How well do you manage your expenses, investments and savings? Would you like to have financial independence?
- Personal Growth – get to know yourself better. What steps could you take this year to increase your own personal development? What behaviour would you like to change? Is there something that you’d like to learn to do better?
- Partner/Relationship – being happy with where you are. If you are in a relationship do you and your partner have your needs as a priority and do you know what these needs are? How much time do you spend with your partner? Are you able to communicate effectively? If you’re not currently in a relationship are you happy with where you are?
- Fun/Social Life – having time to relax and enjoy yourself. How regularly do you take time out for yourself to go and do something you really enjoy? This is one area of our life, which can get out of balance when we spend too much time at work. Arrange to do something this week to increase your fun.
- Career/Business – enjoying your work. Is your job enjoyable and fulfilling? Do you have a plan in place to improve your career/business prospects, gain promotion or plan your retirement? How are your working relationships with your boss, colleagues and others around you? Get to know what makes them tick – after all
they’re people too. - Friends/Family – spending time with your friends and family. How often do you see your family? Who haven’t you spoken to recently that you’ve been meaning to call? Who could you talk to right now? How could you spend more time with your friends?
- Physical Environment – enjoying the surroundings in which you live. What you come home to has an important effect on how you feel day to day. If you’ve got lots of unfinished jobs around the house or you’re not happy with where or how you live, look at what you could do to change it. Pick one outstanding task and aim to do
it by the end of the week.
What next?
No matter how hard you try and with the best of intentions, you know what you need to do but for various reason, you don’t always manage to do it.
Perhaps you’re too busy. Maybe you’re not sure where to start. Here are your potential next steps:
Book a FREE Strategy session – a 30-minute session over the phone. Discuss your challenges, get a sounding board for new ideas, increase your motivation, create an action plan.
Take the FREE Time Quiz – identify five key areas where you could make changes, focus and get more done in less time.