Work-life and professional life have a strong interaction between them. But work-life balance is the equilibrium between both work-life and personal life. The work-life of one person interact in several ways with his personal life especially when there is a huge burden in work-life there is a chance a person will be stressed when he is spending time with his family also there is a probability he could not get enough time to spend time with his family and friends. A person’s job can change him completely both negatively and positively.
IMPORTANCE:
The effective management of work-life balance (WLB) is an issue increasingly recognized as of strategic importance and significance to employees in an organization. Escalating stress and pressure are only caused by work-life imbalance. A healthy example of work-life balance is doing your work on time before the deadline so you have enough time to spend with your family. Not doing your tasks on time will give you mental stress only. In most severe cases, people shout at their spouses and fight because their official work is not done and he is stressed out.
CAUSES:
PROCRASTINATION. This is one of the factors that increase work-related stress. The factors related to procrastination include evaluation, anxiety, low self-efficiency, and lack of persistence. Researchers have regarded procrastination as self-handicapping and dysfunctional behavior. It is a self-regulatory failure and psychological variables that allude to a failure of doing what needs to be done to achieve certain goals. Work-life balance and procrastination are contradictory to each other where there is procrastination there is no balance between work and personal life.
LONG WORKING HOURS. Increased working life and overtime have positive effects on job satisfaction whereas the desire to reduce working hours hurt satisfaction. Long working hours including weekends and public holidays academic staff due to additional responsibilities. An employee who wants to reduce their working time is driven mainly by overtime compensation. It is seen that people who work for long hours are less effective than those who work average times a day and spend time with family.
INCREASED RESPONSIBILITY. The more family responsibilities the respondent have, the more tend to receive flexible working hours as necessary rather than extra benefits. Increased responsibility can lead to destroying work and life balance as when a person has a lot of tasks to do he will be fatigued and cannot give time to his family and ultimately his relationships will be destroyed.
INCREASED EXPENSES AND LESS INCOME. The quality relationship between paid work and unpaid responsibilities is crucial for success in today’s competitive world. This is increasing interest in how people manage to multiple demands of paid work, home, and personal life and the consequence that failure to achieve a balance between these domains may have on health and relationship with your spouse. Increased expenses can lead to destroying work and life balance as a person has already stressed by increased expenses he is trying to meet his expenses and working hard he will ultimately be fatigued and even more stressed without spending time with her family and friends he will be exhausted.
SLEEP TOO MUCH OR LITTLE. Sleep can have a major effect on a person’s life and it can make the whole mood, can destroy it also. Sleep is functional for individual and social well-being, with partial sleep deprivation associated with derelict relationships and on health. Surprisingly, sleep is absent from work-life balance discussions and has remained largely under-researched. The relationship between insufficient sleep duration with occupational circumstances and family responsibilities, providing contributes to broken relationships. There is an inverse relationship between work hours and sleep is found, which is stronger for men.
NATURE OF JOB. Job design and workload have an impact on work-life balance. Burdened jobs have adverse effects on work-life. A person has no time to eat properly, sleep properly and have to work hard to meet their daily goals. This hurts work-life. If a person is doing a job in which he is not interested, he can never perform his tasks timely as a result it will pile up and he will be stressed out about his work. On the other hand, a person who is enjoying his job is never bored doing his task. Sometimes people are not liking the process but they are addicted to the results coming out of that effort is also considered a well-liked job.
EFFECTS:
HEALTH. By taking a closer look at the factors that how work-life imbalance affects life, health is at the top of the list. The dual burden of work-life and professional life may increase work-related health problems. Work-life imbalance leads to chronic stress and chronic stress may lead to acute diseases including heart disease, hypertension, and sometimes depression. Particularly, if there are conflicts between work and family responsibilities. It may lead to pain in the neck, back, shoulder or extremities during the past years.
STRESS. Work-life balance cause stress. It is well established that work stress is a major economic burden not only in lost work productivity but in the loss of that particular job. Too much stress due to work-life imbalance can lead to workplace burnout. Occupational stress is a major health hazard and a serious challenge to effective operations.
LESS PRODUCTIVITY. There are different theories about work-life and its relationship with productivity. Work-life affects total productivity. Sometimes job satisfaction can also affect productivity in several ways if you are satisfied you’ll do your job more effectively otherwise when you are pressurized by already remaining work you cannot be efficient with your current job
DECREASE JOB AND LIFE SATISFACTION. When a person’s work life and personal life are balanced he will automatically be satisfied with his job and ultimately will enhance his productivity. As it affects a person physically, mentally, and emotionally it affects every aspect. If a person’s responsibilities are kept on increasing he will be less satisfied with his job, other reasons can be poor management, lack of advancement, or sticking to boring routines. As a result, he will be soaked in his thoughts of the burden of not responding to his family properly and his personal life will also be affected.
EXHAUSTION. Work-life imbalance also leads to exhaustion. Usually, tiredness has three phases and Exhaustion is the extreme form of tiredness. It is a temporary state of the body. It can be any type of exhaustion either mental exhaustion or physical exhaustion. The main reasons are due changes in your routine, excessive workload, and stress. Some of the common symptoms are headache often leads to migraine, stretching in your muscles, being inactive both mentally and physically, mood swings, scolding for no reason, and feeling troubled while focusing or easily distracted. Other times it can lead to loss of appetite, and stomach and heart diseases.
IMPULSIVE BEHAVIOR. It means to respond in any situation without thinking of the consequences. It also includes excessive doing something like eating, watching movies, etc. a person with impulsive behavior began TO do things without knowing if it is harmful to them. They tend to break things if things do not happen according to them. They want their stuff to happen on the spot or they will lose their temperament. It also happens because of imbalance and disturbance in a person’s life.
SOLUTIONS:
The stress of work-life balance is seen in every corner of the world. Here is how to eliminate it:
JOURNALING. Journaling plays a major role in relieving your mind because it gets your work done on the time according to you. It helps you to achieve your daily goals and so weekly and long-term goal. It is in human nature that forces the person to do their tasks timely instead of procrastinating. It also reduces stress that you have managed your daily tasks in the given 24 hours. It divides your attention equally in all areas of life. You can better use your leisure time to do your task. A better suggestion is to do daily and weekly journals individually. It also enhances your brain capacity and mood.
SAY NO TO UNIMPORTANT TASKS. It is a practice of successful people. They do their important tasks first and then unimportant tasks after important tasks. Other times if you are using your whole day on important tasks you can simply pass those unimportant tasks to others by hiring them. You will feel more confident after doing important tasks but if you do unimportant tasks you will still regret not doing those tasks on time. A person can simply separate important tasks from unimportant by visualizing their long-term goals and where they are seeing themselves in the next 5 years, this is what exactly you are expecting from your life.
DO YOUR PASSION. Doing your passion will always make you enthusiastic for the rest of your life and you will never get bored with what you are doing. When you are enjoying what you are doing you will get less tired and do your work more efficiently. This term can be settled in every area of your life. No matter if you are choosing your career or a spouse or anything that is going to be a part of your life listen to your heart. Because the one whom you are suppressed by is not going to help you later. You will feel you are doing hard work it will seem like more fun and so you can do them effectively.
MEET DEADLINES. If you are journaling and making deadlines, try to give each task enough room so that you can complete them within a given time. If a task is not getting completed in a given amount of time, you can simply schedule them in your free time or make yourself enough efficient to do it timely. A secret to meeting your deadlines is focus and determination. A mindset plays an important role in your work. A person who thinks I am going to be persistent till the end of her time is more likely to complete his tasks than a person who is suppressed by his or her thoughts and gave up.
AVOID PROCRASTINATION. Procrastination is a pattern of holding up on tasks you don’t like and doing chores with temporary happiness and satisfaction. It is an enemy of your success and peace of mind. But people procrastinate because they find things difficult and they avoid doing them and start indulging in fun activities. But when the deadline came they start feeling overwhelmed and pressurized. It is the mother of all diseases. Procrastination is misunderstood as laziness but an active person can also procrastinate. Another major reason for procrastination is people don’t know where to start. Procrastinators can never be successful. If you want success in your life you can change your habit of procrastination.
AVOID MULTITASKING. It is a concept in which a person splits his attention into two or more tasks to perform his actions more rapidly. For example, studying and talking at the same time. It always wastes your time as your brain cannot accumulate two situations at once. It also reduces your brain power and thinking capability and makes you less creative. Multitasking always adds up to your stress level. Even if you achieve your short-term tasks you are going to repent in long term. Studies proved that shifting your brain’s thoughts from pillar to post is going to reduce your brain power.
TAKE VACATIONS FREQUENTLY. Doing chores without any leisure will make you mentally exhausted. Planning to go out and discover new places refresh your mind and your mental health improved. It increases your productivity and creativity. It will make you feel at ease and you will get ready for the next phase of your life. It is as important as exercise because mental health is as important as physical health. When you discover more places, you can see more cultures and it will broaden your perspective.
BE DISCIPLINED. Discipline means self-control. When a person is prioritizing his important tasks instead of wasting his time he is showing discipline. It is not something we do one day and get fruits of it each day, disciplined needs to be practiced daily. It plays an important role in maintaining your life. Discipline is one of the factors which we learned in our childhood. Through discipline, we can manage our lifestyle and our lifestyle is the root cause of work-life imbalance. If you are disciplined you are more prone to use your time properly and can divide it evenly in your professional and personal life.
NO ONE IS PERFECT. It is the famous quote “No one is perfect, that’s why pencils have erasers” quoted by Wolfgang Riebe, It means it is okay to make mistakes, it’s okay to be lazy sometimes but make sure to add the 80/20 rule in your life. This is something that you learn from experiences, always being stressed out because of your being lazy makes you more stressed, but stressing the fact that it is okay to take a rest will freshen your mood and after a break, you will be more productive.
CONCLUSION: Work-life and professional life both have their pros and cons but the wisdom is to start managing your life and accepting the fact you cannot always get what you want. Sometimes things happen you don’t want but facing them with bravery is the best problem solver. Always prioritize mental health.