Simple Strategies to Achieve Work Life Balance

Do you find yourself struggling to maintain any sense of balance between work and home? Maybe you've shaved some of your work hours, only to find that even though you have more time at home, it is creating problems for you at work. Or maybe you spend more time at work to try to get ahead, but end up losing out on precious time with your family because of it.

It is possible to create a perfect balance between work and home. However, it takes great diligence and effort to do so. You have to be willing to reassess certain aspects of your life and figure out what is most important to you.

Keeping these thoughts in mind, let's take a look at some ways you can create that balance that will make your life simpler.

One of the most important things you can do to start pulling in balance is to stop going out of your way to try to please everyone around you. Whether it's at work or at home, you have to stop, breathe, and ask yourself, 'What is most important to me ?'

This might sound harsh, especially when you think about doing this at home. But think about it for a few minutes. The more you try to make everyone around you happy, the more unhappy you will become. And when you are unhappy, you will be less productive and less willing to spend time with the people you enjoy being with.

So stop standing on your head. It doesn't matter how much you try to please others, you will always make somebody mad.

If you've heard it once, you've heard it a hundred time: Get your priorities in order. This is probably the number one area that throw most people off-balance.

If you haven't ever sat down and wrote out your priorities, that would be the best place to begin, and could be the reason why you can't seem to find that work-life balance. List out everything you feel is important in your life. Once you've finished your list, mark off half of those items. Now you are down to your core priorities.

From your list of core priorities, number each item, in order of importance to you. If you are not treating these things in such an order right now, that could explain why you feel off center.

Another thing that could be a problem is having too many priorities. There is such a thing as overloading yourself with so many priorities that you simply do not have enough time for. This doesn't make you a bad person, it just means it's time to slow down and start saying no to some things that you realistically do not have time for.

People who find themselves feeling overloaded also rarely make time for themselves on a regular basis. Do you spend so much time trying to get things done at work and spread yourself around to everyone at home that you don't have any time left for things you love? This is not good.

A lot of people think it is selfish to want to have alone time when you have a full-time career and a family at home to care for. Again, as in the first point above, if you do not give back to yourself, you will eventually end up worn out, tired, frustrated and empty. You will not have anything left to give anyone. This is a place you do not want to end up at.

The most important person you should be looking out for is yourself. Take time to refuel yourself. Carve out time to read a book, go for a long walk, or just relax in bed alone. Do something nice for yourself as often as possible, and on a regular basis. Believe it or not, doing this will greatly help in creating better balance for yourself.