Balancing productivity and rest is challenging for employees at all levels of the company, regardless of if you’re an apprentice or VP. In this article I’ll explore some of the practical ways you can create and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
1) Identify your priorities
Identifying the people and things that matter to you is the first step in creating a healthy work-life balance. If you’re unsure what to prioritize at first glance, start out by writing a list of the top things in your life that you care the most about.
Ask yourself if having this priority in your life is essential. If not, shift your focus. Ideally, you should have a mix of things that supplement your physical and mental health with priorities that interest you.
Below is a list of the top 10 things that matter to me:
- Physical Health
- Mental Health
- Spiritual Health
- Finances
- Family
- Friends
- Business
- Creativity
- Travel
- Career
This is great practice to check in on yourself and realign with what matters to you, rather than letting outside influences like social media dictate your schedule. By being intentional with the time I spend in each area, I’m able to create more fulfillment and cut out distractions.
2) Set healthy boundaries
A lot of us have demanding work roles. If you’re navigating a career change or pursuing an apprenticeship, you’re likely to be juggling job applications, ‘off the job’ work or exams whilst maintaining a full-time role.
Sticking to your working hours
Despite a busy schedule, there are laws in place to help you protect your time. Before signing onto a new job, you should have contracted working hours. If you start at 9am and finish at 5pm, try to resist the temptation to work until 8pm to show enthusiasm or commitment. By managing your time effectively and creating a realistic routine, you should be able to complete your work within the working day. If you still find yourself working over-time, schedule a catch-up with your manager to reprioritize your workload.
3) Create adjustable routines
Lots of us adopt an ‘all or nothing’ approach to our lives without realizing it.
For example, you’re trying to commit more time towards meditation to maintain a positive mindset and improve your well-being. You decide to subscribe to a meditation service and maintain a 1 hour morning meditation routine for a couple of weeks. It’s going well, but a really important deadline comes up at work. By committing more time to this new project, you’re unable to meditate because you’re too tired.
At this point, lots of us might stop meditating altogether and lose the habit - then remember it a couple of weeks later, and feel bad for not staying consistent.
It’s important to create adjustable routines that allow life to happen. You don’t have to mediate an hour every day, maybe during busier moments it’s 30 minutes - or 10 minutes! By creating goals that are achievable and flexible to an extent, you’re more likely to stick to them long enough to form a habit and see the benefits you want.
4) Utilize work benefits
Pursuing a career in the tech or data industry often comes with benefits like paid time off, remote working time and healthcare. Explore what benefits your company has to offer and utilize them to the best of your ability. If you’ve got 15 PTO days a year, schedule time off and use all 15.
Healthcare benefits
Some tech companies have great healthcare packages. Things like dentist treatment, physiotherapy and mental healthcare can be covered depending on your plan. Reach out to an operations representative at your company if you’re unsure about what’s covered on your healthcare plan.
Remote working
Remote working is a great thing about working in tech. If your job can be done remotely, you may have remote or hybrid working options available to you. Some companies even allow employees to work abroad throughout some of the year allowing you to travel without using PTO time.
Multiverse offers professional apprenticeships in digital, tech and data fields. Explore apprenticeship roles on offer here
5) Shifting your perception
It’s natural to compare yourself to others. Whether that’s to other apprentices, family who seem to be achieving more milestones or friends on social media who look as though they’re doing it all, all the time, comparison is human nature. By defining your core values and looking inward, the success of others won’t matter as much because you’ll see your own path to progression - more than theirs.
It’s also important to remember that things like social media are highlight reels showing a very small portion of an individual's life, and failures aren’t posted at the same frequency. Most of us only share the best of our lives or our achievements at face value - rather than the journey taken to achieve them. Define your core values and a way to track your growth, so you can measure progress without external influences impacting your own path.
By shifting your perception inward to strike a balance between work and living and using yourself as a benchmark for progress, you'll be prouder of your small wins. Using the mid-life crisis solution formula is a good way to practise this. The formula is as follows: Desire + metric = core value
For example...
Wanting to go on Vacation + comparing your vacation to your friends = Failure (Negative core value belief)
Wanting to go on Vacation + saving $$$ for it = Happiness (Positive core value belief)
In conclusion, rather than comparing your achievements to external influences, which could be exaggerated, measure the milestones you’ve set out for your own vision.
