How to Reclaim Work-Life Balance

I am a recovering overachiever. Because of my desire to always do better and be better, I had a terrible work-life balance.  I have been forever trying to be the perfect employee. I would work through my lunch, work late or work when I got home. I checked my phone for work emails in the evening and over the weekend. I worked very hard to make myself indispensable. 

Couple this with a pretty horrendous commute - 110 minutes a day on the road. Often I went to work in the dark and got home in the dark. When I got home, I would eat, work on my side business, also complete unfinished work from my regular workday and then go to bed - Monday through Friday like clockwork. 

I was exhausted and unhappy.

Recent personal changes have allowed me to have a better work-life balance. I recently sold my home and moved to be closer to family. This has also allowed me to work from my new home. This change in my living and work situation has helped me to reevaluate the role of work in my life. I still want to do my best. But now I really do realize that I can’t let striving for my best take over my life. Being the best “me” also includes being the best in health, emotions and strong relationships – something I neglected for a long time.

How did my work-life become unbalanced?

I remember my older brother commenting that I studied more in high school than he did in college. Well, if you want to be the best student in your class, as I was determined to be, then how do you do that but by studying intensely? This internal fire to show others, but mostly myself, that I could do anything I set my mind to, propelled me to higher levels in my HR career. But there were many things that I gave up along the way that I now regret. Other mothers would go to school events for their children, but I rarely did. Not because I couldn’t, but I justified it that the school was too far from work and really, did the kids care that I was there? Why disrupt my day if they could give a hoot if I came? Now I see that attending those events was less about my kids’ desires and more about my own. Sharing memories and being a presence in their lives was important…probably as important if not more so than whatever business I was working on. I understand that now.

So why does one’s life become unbalanced?

Aside from the classic overachiever at work like me, why might a person’s life become unbalanced between work and your outside-of-work life?

People pleaser or “obliger”

The author Gretchen Reuben has published a book titled “The Four Tendencies.” One of the tendencies and the most popular one of all those that have taken her quiz is the Obliger. Those that are obligers can meet outer expectations but have a harder time with inner expectations. So when a project needs to be done and requires staying late, they can give up their after-work run to do it with no questions. When external forces, such as those at a workplace, require the obliger’s time or attention, s/he will give it. They then become the go-to person for extra work, as they can be counted on to do it. Yes, these obligers do get burnt out eventually and they do get resentful, but they usually will continue to give until they reach a breaking point.

Something to prove—early-career or new to a job

When early in your career, you may realize that to make your living situation better you need more money. Often, the only way to do this is to get promoted. You figure working hard and doing good work will get you noticed – and it often does. So, you put in more hours than you would really like in the hopes that the extra time will translate to more responsibility and higher pay. If you are new to a job, there is a learning curve, sometimes often steep. Your productivity is lower than your peers, so to compensate, you work longer hours while you are getting up to speed. 

Demanding boss

Sometimes you may have a boss that watches when you come and go, so you feel that you need to put in a lot of hours to either get on his/her good side or to prevent criticism of your engagement or work efforts. You could also have a boss that heaps on the work, so much so that you cannot get it all done in a normal workweek or one that is so exacting that good is never good enough. The only way to meet this boss’s high expectations is to put in the extra hours and effort.

All hands on deck times

There may be crunch times is the business operations when everyone has to put in extra time. Accountants notoriously have to work extra hours during month-end close. Financial difficulties can result in employees putting in extra time. I was at a company that had to cut back on payroll and that meant the hours of the hourly staff were cut. I rotated with a few others to do receptionist duties. That meant that I had to put in extra hours to get my regular work done.

So how do you get your work-life balance back?

Getting your work-life balance back is easier said than done. It means you have to first acknowledge you have an issue and then come up with strategies to reclaim your time.

Just say “no”

“No” is a very powerful word and often employees are afraid to use it, as it can be associated with insubordination. In my HR career, I have seen it used effectively by employees, but the important caveat is that the employee has had to have earned respect in the workplace, and the word is used infrequently. Let me give an example. An employee has often volunteered to do additional sales pitches that involved travel around the country. When this took her from her spouse and children for too long a time, she politely, but firmly said no. She did not completely leave this company’s sales team hanging, though. She said that she would help if it was no more than two times per month, and it did not involve more than one overnight per month. The company was grateful for her help, and she instead would fly in and out the same day and others would put together the sales deck. 

Provide guardrails. Block time on the calendar

A good strategy is to just block out your calendar to get your work done. If you have an office, close the door. If you work in a cubicle, leave the area and try to find a quiet space. This is your time. Concentrate on the tasks that need focus and take brainpower. If someone needs to speak with you, let him/her know that you are not available during this time but can speak later in the day. Make this time sacrosanct.

Leave work at a set time

I had a boss that would leave work at 4:30 pm every day. It did not matter if she just got out of a meeting at 4:30 pm. She would go to her office, get her purse and with a thud, her office door would close. She knew it was important to see her spouse and children, and she made them a priority. And guess what. Everyone working there knew that if they wanted to talk to her, they needed to do it before 4:30 pm. She worked hard during the day and if needed, would get back online in the evening, but this was a rarity. She had set her boundaries and people understood them.

Turn off phone

What you do not know cannot bother you. If you turn off your phone (or at least your work email), then there is no way it should be disrupting you. Very rarely is there a true emergency that you need to be aware of via email. More so, you may be just curious about what is going on or have a fear of missing out. If you want true work-life balance, then be present at work and present at home – both fully. Let your boss, peers, and direct reports know that you will not be looking at emails after a certain time. If something is a true emergency, give them another way to get in touch with you, maybe by phone or text. This will help you truly unplug from work and focus on family and friends.

Set expectations on when you will be available

Coupled with blocking calendar time, leaving at a set time and turning off your phone, you can proactively let your co-workers know when you are available, especially if you are in a position where availability in the evening or weekends is a necessity. So you might tell coworkers that you will be checking emails Sunday evening between 8 pm and 9 pm or at 7:30 pm each evening. That way they know you will respond at that time and you do not have to feel that you are on call. In the office, you may want to have “office hours” where people can drop by to chat with you. If you have pressing work and someone stops by, you can ask them to come back later when you have time to chat. 

Setting boundaries can be hard, and you will have people around you that will always challenge you on them. If you want work-life balance, you need to guard the life part from your work family, just as you need to guard the work part from your family and friends. If you are clear about your boundaries and consistent with them, you will train the people around you to honor them. If you don’t think you can do this with your current work situation, try to figure out why. Is it just you or the job/company? If it is either the work you do or the company that you do it for that is the problem, then the solution may be to change one or both of them.