Importance Of Work-life Balance
By: Irfan Soomro
Tags: Articles, Stress, Work Life Balance, Content Creation, Freelance Writing

Introduction

According to a survey in the US, 72% of respondents considered work-life balance a very important factor. The importance of work-life balance is inevitable for a healthy and prosperous life. In today’s world, it is hard to separate personal life from a professional one because we are deeply connected with different social media platforms and professional linkages through different applications on our mobile phones. This is a reason we are engaged all the time with our mobile phones for personal and professional work and we normally use emails on our mobile phones even being out of the office and take business calls while enjoying ourselves with friends and so on.

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Employers usually expect more work from their employees to get more monetary benefits or produce speedy results that mainly lead to feeling more pressure for productivity even at family times. This is such a demanding situation that keeps an employee/staff continuously under stress. Though, stress is natural but the problem is a lack of awareness about how to mitigate that level of stress. Prolonging stress leads to serious physical and mental health problems and burnout. So, work-life balance matters a lot here because it helps drawing lines between your personal and professional life, reducing the level of stress and also creating an enabling environment for managing it.

Definition of work-life balance

work-life balance simply means to prioritize your office work and spare adequate time for your family and friends to make it a more balanced life. This should continue on regular basis. However, as it seems simple in definition but it’s not as much easy to achieve this in real life. This may be challenging for all of us. However, it solely depends upon an individual how he/she can equalize different personal and professional activities in a way to achieve work-life balance. Achieving work-life balance is a difficult task in today’s fast-paced business environment because our life is deeply penetrated in today’s high-tech world and has extremely affected our social life.

COVID-19 has further exacerbated the situation and put certain limitations on the movements of an individual, rising demand for remote working and ensuring social distancing at all times. People become reluctant to go outside unnecessarily from their houses because of fear of contact with COVID. Thus, it’s hard to ensure a work-life balance. To deal with it while working from home requires mental strength, courage, and resilience for prioritizing to achieve a work-life balance. Achieving work-life balance has many advantages in our life in different aspects and it sets our life in a more disciplined and healthy manner and that is the ultimate aim what we all want to have in our life.

Why work-life balance is so important

A good work-life balance enhances productivity and contributes to less stress because of a balanced focus upon both personal and professional life, a greater sense of well-being, and a lower risk of burnout. According to a survey conducted in Singapore in January 2019, 43.8% of people strongly identified valuing work-life balance. Achieving a work-life balance has many positive effects on our physical and mental health, like less burnout, less time for bearing pressure for meeting official deadlines, and reduce stress because of shifting priority from profession to personal life.

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If you don’t have the importance of work-life balance you will engage yourself deeply in professional matters thus spending more and more time in official engagements thus increasing your stress level most of the time. Workplace stress is the 5th biggest cause of death in the US. So, achieving a work-life balance enables you to prioritize your office work and personal life in a manner that you have adequate time for both personal and professional life.

Challenges in work-life balance

Achieving work-life balance is very challenging in today’s working environment where our life is deeply engaged in technological advancement and usage of social media. We can hardly draw lines between our personal and professional life because we use mobile and read emails when it comes and attends official calls anytime. This leads to pressure, pressure contributes to mounting stress levels, stress further promotes emotional and physical imbalance and unhappiness. So, overcoming challenges at this stage is very important to maintain a healthy work-life balance. There is a need to identify those factors which hinder achieving work-life balance.

Tips to improve work-life balance

Work-life balance is a matter of priority. Prioritization will come when you understand its importance in your life. There are certain tips to improve it like drawing your lines for work and personal life, say no to unimportant tasks, take care of yourself as well. Employers also need to encourage their staff to time off for improving staff productivity and less spending on the healthcare budget.

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Conclusion

Work-life balance is a reality for a healthy life and a matter of priority. It has considerable importance in one’s life for a healthy environment. To achieve it, you can draw certain limitations between your personal and professional tasks and adhere to it and also set aside office work at the office, no receiving official calls and checking emails while enjoying yourself with family. This will bond family relationships for a longer period.