In our society where burn-out, bore-out, quiet quitting and other anglicisms explicitly describing the saturation of employees flourish, the balance between professional and personal life becomes the quest for the Grail. In order to prevent these psychosocial risks experienced in the workplace, it is high time to learn to combine personal life and professional life. We give you our best tips to put in place to find peace at work and at home.
1. When work encroaches on private life
A very good quality appreciated by employees is the will to do well. The problem arises when you want to do just too well, even if it means gradually letting your work overwhelm your personal life. So, we bring work home: “Well, I'm going to finish this this weekend. » « I have nothing planned this evening, I take my files with me. ". Or, we stay late at the office in the evening because we haven't had time to finish a due task; or because we have a workload that exceeds our capacities; worse, because the hierarchy puts pressure to work more and harder...
Our solutions to keep work in its place, that is to say in the company:
a) Learn to organize your time (and stick to it)
Do the deadlines of different projects panic you? Take the time to make a list of your projects and tasks, putting them in front of their deadline. A calendar over the year makes it possible to visualize the major projects to be released. Then, distinguish the urgent from the important, delegate what is neither important nor urgent. Next, break down bigger projects into smaller tasks, then estimate how long it will take to complete them. Finally, build your retro-planning.
Each month, take a moment to review the tasks (some will no longer be relevant, others will be added); do the same every week. Plan your goals for the week, be realistic and plan breaks and time slots for urgent contingencies.
Keep in mind that a task takes the time given to it. (Parkinson's Law)
b) Learn to ask for help and say no
If you realize that the target deadlines cannot be met by keeping correct working hours, call on your N+1. He is there to find solutions with you. And if he adds a task that you already know is too much on your schedule, ask him to review your priorities with you.
You could go further and ask for an interview with your N+1 in order to discuss what would make you more fulfilled and therefore more effective at work. While being constructive, you can discuss different objectives, responsibilities, evolution.
c) Set boundaries
Let's talk about right to disconnect who entered the law. Since 2017, every employee has the right to disconnect. That is to say that outside working hours, he has the right not to look at his emails or answer them, not to answer calls, not to go to the intranet, etc. Assume that if you're not a heart surgeon on call, everything can wait until the next morning. This is as true for executives and managers as it is for employees.
The trick to clearly defining your limits is to take the reflex of deactivating your email alerts on your phone in the evening, on weekends and during holidays. If you are a manager and therefore not paid by the hour, self-discipline will be required, in order to impose breaks and defined schedules.
2. Valuing your life outside the company
Once the limits are set on the work side, you will have to find your well-being and personal fulfillment. The idea is no longer to go home exhausted from work and without energy until you wake up the next morning. On the contrary, the work/personal life balance precisely involves giving importance to personal life; because it is precisely the negligence of personal life that leads to an imbalance between the pro and the personal. That is to say, the less importance you give to your personal life, the more professional life will take over. It will then be necessary to return to point 1/ to try to restore the balance.
Here are our solutions to cherish your life outside of work:
a) Find time for yourself
Deliberately and assiduously, set aside time to do yourself good: sport, dance, meditation, spa, culture, hiking, gardening, creative activities such as macrame, pottery... Create appointments with yourself regularly every week, as much as possible.
b) Cultivate the present moment
When you spend time with friends or family, be at 100% present with them. Enjoy the present moment, do your best to make it as pleasant as possible. We forget during these moments work, emails and text messages from work.
c) Cut completely
At least once a year and at least two consecutive weeks, plan a vacation where you will cut work completely. This requires organizing yourself before your departure by communicating as much as possible to the rest of your team and your manager about the projects in progress, those to be recovered, those which will await your return. Then, leave with a light heart, the telephone switched off. Whether you are going to the other side of the world or to a town that does not have 4G, everything is good! Even if it requires effort for the most workaholics, believe that cutting out completely will be beneficial for your motivation and your well-being at work.
Perhaps you will have other tips for finding your professional/personal life balance: we are waiting for your comments!
