Tips for Balancing Work and Home Life

How many times has it been said, "It's not personal, it's only business". Some hear these words and get offended by them but, it is true that your business life and your personal life are separate. Admitting this to one's self can help people gain the knowledge on how to balance home life and work life without losing either in the process. This article will give you some tips and ideas on how to make sure you can have both and be happy.

First, take a typical work day into consideration where any given person wakes up at approximately 7:00 am, barring having to take care of children or other family members which may make a person wake up earlier. For a 9 to 5 job that warrants two hours to get dressed, have breakfast, gather your belongings and commute to work which is not too bad. Most people are given a 30 minute lunch break and you are done with work at 5:00 pm leaving the rest of the time to be able to enjoy the day. For most people this is not a realistic day to refer to but, it does raise an important point about how we spend our time each day and how we balance work and private time.

The first thing every working person should do is keep a schedule for work and home with a planner or PDA device. It is important to take the life you have at home just a serious as the life that is at work. Many people believe that because a paycheck comes with their business life that it has more value than their personal life. According to the US Department of Labor, Americans spend approximately 1,824 hours per year at work leaving a whopping 6,936 hours of time to use per year as we see fit. So, why do most of people feel as if they don't have enough time for a personal life? One's personal life can include a walk in the park, going to the movies, spending time with children, or a number of other things that are dictated by your own wants and desires. If you take into account we spent approximately 2,920 hours sleeping and another 78 hour or so in the bathroom we actually have roughly around 3,938 hours a year or roughly 10 hrs a day to ourselves. Now, of course this time is not consecutive but if it can be managed well enough so we can feel that there is more than enough time.

Life is a mysterious thing indeed. No one knows what it is all about and no one knows how it is suppose to be. What we do know is that we all are here and we somehow need to make the best of what we have while we are here. So, schedule your life to be lived the best way it can be lived for you. Keep track of your home or personal life the same as you would for your work life. You should schedule in time for thing such as exercise, communicating with friends and family, surfing the internet, listening to music or watching TV so you can gain control of your time. Your work is not your life but your life can be your work. Even if you own your own business and perhaps even more so you should always make sure you are aware of the need for private time. This can be as simple as taking 5 minutes to walk around your office complex and breathing in some fresh air or taking a power nap in your office for 20 minutes.

The effect of not taking the time for yourself will be reflected in your performance at work. Mental fatigue will turn a normal productive employee into an empty shell that will just go through the motions and is nowhere near as productive as a well rested and personally satisfied employee. The United States in one of the few industrialized countries that do not enforce mandatory time off from work which means we must be aware of the time we need for ourselves. Most countries force their employees to take up to 6 weeks off per year. In the US the average employee takes only 13 days off per year. If your reason for not taking that long needed vacation is because of money than find other forms of income that don't take up as much time to supplement your current job such as internet work or selling crafts. There are tons of hobbies that can result in generating a substantial income if the time is taken to manage it. The worst thing you can do is let your job become your sole reason for waking up in the morning. You will find that when you take the time to think about your personal life and nurture yourself with the things that make you happy it will increase your moral as well as give you a much better mindset for decision making and problem solving.

Communication is a vital and often over looked detail that can easily give you ultimate control of your time. Always be clear with your employer when you have important dates coming up in the future and be responsible for your time when you need to take off from work. When making appointments communicate your needs to make sure you are not over loading your day. Most people understand what being busy means because it's a part of everyday life, so be sure to express your time is valuable, because it is. With today's advances in technology there are a million and one ways to manage your time and to customize your management tools. We live in an obsessive society and it is difficult to rationalize what personal time really is and we sometimes over look our inner needs and become tiered faster and unmotivated. This causes some to over indulge in stimulants such as caffeine to compensate for the lack of energy. This will in turn put our health at risk and ultimately make our time management even harder to maintain.

Mental health is an important part of our everyday existence and can be self maintained with simple steps. Stress is the number one cause of death and illness in American and also can be self maintained with simple steps. For more information as to how you can balance your work and home life visit Mental Health America or for parents who feel stressed out as they try to maintain the balance visit Parent Line Plus.