Do you want to build a successful career while having lots of time for your kids? If YES, here are 32 simple family work life balance tips & tricks for employees. In recent time, family work life balance is always in the front burner when the issue of productivity in the workplace is being discussed. It is a proven fact that family work life balance is an ideal way to achieve productivity at work. If the home front is well – taken care of, the office front will be properly handled, and jobs/projects will be executed speedily.
As an employer of labor, if truly you want to maximize profits in your business and create a win – win situation in your company, then you must be willing to create a working environment that encourages work life balance. The truth is that if your employees understand and adopt the concept of work life balance, then you won’t struggle to get them to achieve the company’s corporate goals and it will also help them live a fulfilled and happy life.
If your employees adopt the work life balance concept, they won’t struggle to meet and also surpass their daily, weekly and monthly targets. The truth is that if your employees are able to meet their targets in the workplace, it will be a win – win for both the organization and the employees and of course their families will benefit greatly.
As an employee, in case you don’t work in an organization where work life balance is encouraged, you can personally create your own work life balance ‘lifestyle’ by adopting the following tips and tricks.
32 Simple Family Work Life Balance Tips & Tricks for Employees
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Simplify Your Job
The first and perhaps one of the most important thing you need to put in place if you want to achieve work life balance is to create a conducive working environment for yourself and that means you should try as much as you can to simplify your job description. The truth is that if you simplify your job description, you will have less stress, you will love your job and you will achieve more on a daily basis with minimal effort.
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Create Clear Demarcation Between Work and Family
No doubt, every employee comes from a family whether married or not hence the need to ensure that they create clear cut demarcation between their work and their family life. Creating clear cut demarcation between your work life and your family life is all about not bringing your work home and not taking your family concerns to the office. If you are in the office, give your work all the attention it requires and if you are at home, give your family all the care, love and of course attention they need.
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Don’t Overwork Your Self
Another important family work life balance tip that you need to adopt as an employee is to ensure that you carry out your job description diligently but never overwork yourself. The truth is that if you overwork yourself, you will be stressed out, you will be less productive and you may likely fall sick. In all sincerity, any employee that dies as a result of overworking him or herself will definitely be replaced. The fact that an employee died for his or her company does not mean that the company will leave the position vacant; the job must go on. Research shows that when employees are over stretched beyond their capacity, instead of getting increase in workplace productivity, you will get decline in productivity.
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Always Observe Your Break Period
It is the practice for some employees to skip their break period just because they want to be seen to be working hard for their company. In as much as it is good to once in a while skip your break to meet up with targets or deadlines, it is not advisable to make it a habit. If indeed you want to maintain family work life balance, then you must ensure that you always observe your break period as much as you can.
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Create Time for Regular Family Hangout
As a working class married person, no doubt the time you spend at work would usually be more than the time you spend with your family. In order to make up for this and create family work life balance, you need to create time for regular family hangout. You would need to take your family out once in a while. Engage in activities that will foster family bonding. Family hangout does not necessarily need to be an expensive outing. You can go to the park, drive round town and you can engage in social work as a family in your community.
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Ensure That Your Work Station is Always Spic and Span
Productivity and dis-organization cannot go together. As a matter of fact, an unorganized work station is a stress enabler. So, one of the tips and tricks that will help you live family work life balance is to ensure that your work station is always spic and span. What you need to do to achieve this is to have less of stuffs around your work station.
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De – Clutter Your Workstation and Computer Regularly
Another key family work life balance tip for employees is to always de-clutter their workstation and computer on a regular basis. De-cluttering your workstation and computer means removing stuffs that are no longer useful to you in the office, deleting files, documents and software apps that are not needed in your computer. The truth is that if you remove all that needs to be removed from your work station, you will have less stress and you can easily stay focused when you are ta work.
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Become a Team Player
In order to live a family work life balance lifestyle, you must not be a lone ranger but rather you should become a team player both at work and in your home. Your colleagues at work should be able to work seamless with you, and your family at home should be able to relate with you without stress.
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Create Time to Attend Family Functions
As an employee especially if you have a family of your own, you should always create time to attend family functions. Your life shouldn’t be work alone; you should ensure that you attend your children’s open day in school, attend family parties, attend your children’s sports functions et al. If you are able to do that when you are less busy at work, it will relieve you of some stress and make your life better.
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Inspirational Pictures Should Be Placed at Strategic Positions in the Workplace Environment
Another family work life balance tip and trick that you need to observe as an employee is to ensure that you placed inspirational pictures (could be your family picture) at strategic positions within your work station. Research shows that inspirational pictures take away stress and of course pictures can serve as a good medium of inspiration and motivation hence the need to have relevant inspirational and motivational pictures.
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Inspirational Quotes Should Be Placed at Strategic Positions in the Workplace
Another effective family work life balance tip for employees is to ensure that they have inspiration quotes placed in strategic positions in their workstation. Inspirational quotes that are neatly framed can be placed in your office or workstation will serve as a means of reducing stress and of course motivation to achieve more when you work.
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Attend Family Work Life Balance Seminars
You stand the chance to gain a lot when you attend relevant seminars, conferences and symposiums that deal with family work life balance. Some organizations ensure that they organize family work life balance seminars for their employees, and if you are in such organization, then you are lucky but if not, try as much as lies within your power to attend any related seminar within your location even if it means paying some money.
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Make Use of Staff Bus as Against Driving Your Personal Car to Work
Another useful family work life balance tip is to ensure that you leverage on the company’s staff bus as against driving your personal car to work. The truth is that entering staff bus to and fro work will take the stress of driving away from you. If you are in a staff bus, you will be able to take a nap, quickly check your personal mail or make some calls.
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Delegate as Much as You Can
Delegating at work and at home is one sure tip that would help you enjoy family work life balance. You mustn’t do all things by yourself. Let a laundry man handle your laundry, let a gardener take care of your lawn, let a subordinate help you in distributing mails and the list goes on. Just ensure that you delegate as much as you can. It will save you stress and make you more productive.
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Happy Hour Should Be Observed
There is popular saying that goes thus ‘All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy’. This is applicable to employees who want to enjoy family work life balance. So, if you want a tip that will help you maximize family work life balance, then you should ensure that you join other members of your organization in observing the time for happy hour in your organization. It is an opportunity for you to ease out stress.
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Catch Enough Sleep at Night
Part of what is responsible for stressing out people especially working class people is lack of sleep. When you sleep less, you are likely going to be stressed out and probability of making mistakes at work will be high. So, if you want to enjoy family work life balance, then you must ensure that you catch the required hours of sleep every night especially if you know you will be going to work the following day. On the average, an adult needs a minimum of 6 hours of sleep at night.
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Try as Much as You Can to Observe Siesta at Work
Another effective family work life balance tip is to try as much as you can to observe siesta at work. Taking a short nap during your break period is all that you need to stay refreshed and energetic at work. The truth is that taking a nap for as little as 20 minutes will make the whole difference in your productivity.
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Public Holidays Should Be Observed
If you are aiming towards enjoying family work life balance as an employee, then you must ensure that you observe public holidays. The truth is that some employees in the bid to meet their targets shun public holidays and still put in the usual work hours. If you are guilty of this, try as much as you can to correct it because you will only end up accumulating more stress which ultimately will negatively impact on your productivity.
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Cut Down On Overtime
No doubt, there will be reasons when you are expected to put in extra hours or work overtime in order to meet the organization’s productivity goals. If it is optional, then it is advisable to cut down on overtime even if the pay is good. It is part of the tips you would need if indeed you want to enjoy family work life balance. It will enable you spend enough time with your family, friends and of course to relax.
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Learn to Switch Off Your Phone When You Want to Rest / Sleep
Another tip you need if you want to enjoy family work life balance is to ensure that you switch off your phone whenever you want to rest or sleep. The truth is that there some employees whose phone line hardly stay idle. If you fall in that category, then you must ensure your phone line especially your official line is switched off if you want to rest or sleep or even spend time with your family members.
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Always Work with ‘To Do’ List
One of the ways an employee or even a business owner can work with focus and achieve more is to ensure that they always start their day by drawing up a ‘To Do List’. With a ‘To Do List’ you will be able to know what to do per time and that ultimately will help you stay focused and of course maximize productivity at work.
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Don’t Live Above Your Income
People that live above their means tend to be indebted and when you are struggling to pay back debt, you are likely going to be stressed out and it can affect your family work life balance. So if you want to maximize work life balance, one of the tips you need to employ is to try as much as lies within your power to live within your income. Living above your means will always put you on edge.
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Adopt Effective Filing System
Another effective family work life balance tip you need to adopt as an employee is to adopt effective and reliable filing system. This is applicable if you work with files either online or offline. The truth is that if your files are properly arranged, it will make it easier for you to locate a file when you need them as against scattering the whole files in your file cabinet/shelf just because you are looking for a file. It will save you stress and time if the files are properly arranged.
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Go for Medical Check-ups on a Regular Basis
In order to maximize family work life balance, you would need to be healthy as a sick person can hardly become a productive person. So part of what you need to do if you want to maximize family work life balance is to ensure that you go for medical check-ups on a regular basis; you will be able to know your health status and identify symptoms and signs of sickness at the early stages before they become serious.
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Don’t Take Life Too Seriously
Of course it is good to be serious with life and all that you do including your work, but it will be to your own detriment if you choose to take life too seriously. The truth is that if you take life too seriously, you will always be at the edge, you can get offended easily and you can get stressed and frustrated easily. So, if you want to maximize family work life balance, learn not to take life too seriously. Play when you have to, crack jokes when you have to and never forget to laugh hard when you have to.
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Make Use of Your Leaves and Go for Vacations
Another family work life balance tip and trick that you need as an entrepreneur is to always make use of your leaves and go for vacations. No doubt, there are occasions where you would have to cut short your vacation in order to execute a project in the work place. But when it is the norm for you, it will definitely affect workplace productivity and your family and social life. In essence, if you want you want to maximize family work life balance, then you should ensure that you make use of your leaves and go for vacations. Adequate rest is part of the recipe for peak performance in the work place and enjoyable family relationship.
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Read for Leisure
Ordinarily the average person sees readily as a difficult task, but part of what you would need to do if you want to enjoy family work life balance is to ensure that once in a while you take up some books or magazine and just read for leisure. One good thing about reading for leisure is that it takes off some burden especially work and family related burden off your shoulder. Reading for leisure also stretches your mind and exposes you to useful information.
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Take Your Family Members to See Movies Once in a While
Part of what you need to do if you want to maximize family work life balance is to take your family members out once in a while to see movies. After the movies, lessons learnt should be shared during discussions. This is one key family bonding tip that will help you spend quality time with your children and spouse.
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Set Realistic Goals
Another important family work life balance tip is to ensure that you set realistic family and work goals for yourself. One of the reasons why some people are overworked and stressed out is that they set unrealistic goals for themselves and in the bid to trying to achieve such goals, they burn out and breakdown. This is the reason why you need to evaluate your capacity and set goals within your capacity. For example, if you as a salesperson the highest sales you made is $1,000 per month, it will be beyond your capacity to set a goal to make $100,000 in a month; it is an unrealistic goal. It will be wise to set goals of $5,000 or even $10,000.
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Engage in Stress Buster Activities
Stress is a major end product of a family work life that is not balanced, hence the need to try as much as possible to eliminate stress if indeed you want to enjoy family work life balance. Activities such as going to karaoke, going to yoga class, going to a massage shop and enrolling in a gym amongst others are part of the stress buster activities you would need to engage in if you want to enjoy family work life balance.
31. Exercise
One of the most serious things that we as humans need to increase is exercise. Many times, so many people leave it at the back burner. Exercise is an effective stress reducer. It pumps feel-good endorphins through your body. It helps boost your mood and can even give you increased energy levels.
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Turn off Your Gadgets
There is a reason our gadgets have off buttons. Start to commit to reducing the amount of time you spend with technology after getting home from the office. Staring at a computer screen for 7 hours a day has incredibly negative effects on your mood and energy; take a step back once you have a moment to breathe. To get started, do it in phases. Don’t bring your cellphone to the dinner table.
It pays a great deal to create a balance between your work and life. Make all these tips yours and you will be on your way to enjoying a robust life as a career person.