Finding Work-Life Balance in a 9–5 | How to Achieve It (2024)

Work-life balance is a complicated task.

Let’s be honest here when it comes to trying to have the best of both worlds. It can be a task in itself that drains you.

It is possible, and you just have to do a little digging to find the sweet spot.

Set Your Boundaries: Know what your acceptable level of work is, and don’t exceed it.

Don’t overwork yourself to the brink of collapse; take time to set boundaries around work-related tasks and expectations not only on your end but your team’s.

We want to make it very clear what is to be expected by all parties here.

We tend to overwork ourselves, which is highly unhealthy for us, and it will also reflect in our work.

Set these healthy boundaries to slow down when needed, and speed up when it’s time, and we will find the limitations we are looking for.

Taking on more tasks at work is a good idea because it shows your bosses that you are a hard worker and up to everything.

That is the issue; you take on everything without knowing your workload and sometimes bite off more than you can chew.

It is okay to not take on the world at once; we are human and can only be tasked with so much before we drain ourselves.

Make Time for Yourself — Schedule “me time” each week to do activities you enjoy

You come first.

Always remember you deserve my time and need it.

If you can take care of yourself first, you will be able to perform better at work and in life.

Every week aim to do something that you love doing that takes your mind off of everything else, and in that time, just enjoy it.

Having downtime to yourself shouldn’t feel like a negative thing, and if you are not used to having personal time, then it is time to start now.

Schedule time in your calendar for yourself because you deserve it.

Prioritize Yourself: Don’t overextend yourself with tasks that don’t move your career forward.

We can do things that line up differently than we want to.

I have done this plenty of times, especially when taking on tasks for people that have no correlation with what aligns with me.

Focus on what matters to you and what matters to your career.

You want to avoid getting caught up in something that holds no value to you.

Find the opportunities to propel your career, and don’t overextend.

Take Regular Breaks: Get up from your desk every hour and briefly walk or check in with a colleague.

The number of times I don’t step away from my desk to take even a tiny 5-minute break because of hustle culture should be illegal.

This is something that should be normalized.

Take breaks throughout the day to just decompress briefly every hour.

It will let you perform much better.

Get away from that desk, computer, sheet, etc., and just lay on your floor if you have to. Get sun while you are at it, too, for the work-from-home folks.

Find Healthy Habits: Incorporate healthy lifestyle habits such as yoga, meditation, or journaling into your daily life.

This has been critical in staying grounded when it can get hectic.

Find a healthy habit to incorporate into your regimen.

If lifting weights, running, reading, journaling, and so on, just do something you can escape into.

Lifting weights and sports have always been a part of my life.

I played football growing up, and in high school, I played football and golfed. Ever since then, I can’t ever see myself not doing anything active. It is truly embedded in me at this point.

I recently have been journaling every night for the past 30 days, and that is a powerful tool everyone can use to get stuff off their minds.

We have a lot of thoughts and things that go on in our life, so let that stuff go on pen and paper. You will feel more free, trust me.

Ditch Perfectionism — Stop striving for perfection; instead, focus on completing tasks in the best way you can

Lastly, nobody or nothing is perfect; sorry to break it to you.

Just do the damn thing.

Don’t worry about it being spot on. It will never be perfect; there is always that can be caught, and you wish you might have done something another way.

Your completing the task is good enough.

This does not mean giving it a C effort, but you should give it your best effort, and if you feel this way about it, then be proud of yourself.

Perfectionism is going to be the death of you if you sit there and always micro-adjust everything.

I used to have a bad problem with this, and my family always told me to stop worrying about it being perfect, whatever the task was.

I have learned that I gave it my best and nothing will be perfect, maybe 99%, but never 100% what I want.