
©People Managing People
As promised in Blog 29, this is the last of a three-part blog on maintaining a healthy work-life tension (or balance). In this blog, the final five habits to consider including in your life’s rhythm to reduce the stress and feel like you are in control.
1. Know your roles
If you know your role at work, then you know what is expected of you and others, how to behave and what you are expected to accomplish. First, reread your Job Description. Then review your work Code of Conduct. We often take these two documents for granted but they should provide you an explicit account of what is required of you at work. Then it’s a matter of better understanding the cultural norms in your workplace (the implicit). What are the cultural norms? Ask your co-workers to help you read the workplace. What is the unsaid? And what are you expected to accomplish? These are not the goals you set for yourself, but those that your supervisor expects of you. Turn the implicit to explicit – you don’t want guesswork here.
2. Know how to put margins in your life

©Crosspoint Community Church
Margins are a recurrent theme in the Your life caddy blogs. This is the ninth blog where it has been mentioned, so it a key aspect in your personal and life balance. Specifically blog 4 and 22 address this habit and provide some clues as to how to add them to your life. So if you are feeling the work-life balance is out, this is one of the first places to go. And it’s going to need you to stop and reflect long enough to work out what margins are required and where they should go.
3. Do you need a vacation now?
If you are finding the tension needing a release, maybe it is time to take a circuit break. A holiday can get you off the hamster wheel, but it is going to need you to take the step to book the leave and work out what type of break you need. It may not need to be an exotic vacation, just a chance to get away from the whirlwind of work and life and reset. Blog 3, 4 and 5 address the struggle of taking your work on holidays, so it may be worth reviewing this before you go on vacation in an effort to make the most of the break, and know what kind of break you need.
4. Set healthy boundaries
Are poor boundaries holding you back from maintaining a healthy work-life balance?

©Vox
Here’s seven quick hits that may help you hold better boundaries. If you can identify any of these seven as requiring more work, then dive into that aspect and learn more.
- Start saying no. This was a topic within Blog 14 (point 8), so there are some tips in that blog to help you. But to do that you need to know your boundaries.
- Ask for what you want. Don’t assume that others know. Speak up.
- Speak up if you feel uncomfortable in a situation. You can do this gently and it will help others know and accept where your boundaries lie.
- Take blame when appropriate. There may be times when you are in the wrong and it is appropriate for you to take your share of the blame pie . . . but it may not be the whole pie . . . if any at all.
- Let others do things for themselves. You don’t have to rescue others. Be healthily independent and help others to be that way too. Don’t over-commit.
- Ask for space when you need it. Space boundaries are very individual. Introverts find they need more space than the average to recharge. Where are your boundaries? Know your limitations.
- Everyone has a right to privacy. Maintain the privacy boundary that is right for you . . . but be aware of your boundaries and speak up when you need to.
You can see that when it comes to boundaries, there is a lot of diversity, and there are only seven in this list. Again, find the ones that impact your work-life balance and do some work to find out how you can improve on that aspect.
5. Plan well – think and strategise.
Not withstanding the other nine aspects in this series, the best way you can maintain the work-life tension is to plan well. That means you need time set aside regular times to review your goals, plan your life and adjust . . . and maybe implement better margins. Make sure your planning tools are readily available, mobile and in a form where you can review them weekly if need be. This will take time – but the more effectively you plan, the clearer you will be of your life’s expectations and the direction you are headed. If your planning is unclear, you will be easily impacted by the whirlwinds of life and easily blown off course. Plan well!

©Freepik
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