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March: Work-Life Balance Redefined

Balance is Within Reach

co-workers talking

Balance. It’s harder than ever to achieve these days. In trying to stay on top of everything in both your work and your personal life, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. The stress of doing it all can affect your health and lead to unhealthy habits. People seem to struggle with more stress now, as technology has intruded on family time and communication.

But remember that getting balance in your life is not out of your reach. First, it may help to stop and look closely at everything in your daily life. Identify the activities that are causing you the most stress. Also identify the things that might be missing in your life. Then, step by step, you can begin to rearrange your life in small ways to restore some balance.

In this issue of Your Source, you’ll learn how to:

  • Identify those things in life that are causing you the most stress.
  • Pinpoint your core values and spend more time on things that are important to you.
  • Find ways to deal with feelings of being overwhelmed.
  • Tap into tools that can help you gain more control of your work and life.

Log on to access Work-Life Balance Redefined and other helpful resources in the Spotlight section, and share this with your co-workers and family members.

Focusing on Priorities Gives you Room to Breathe

It seems like there are more moving parts to modern life today than ever before. Often we feel the need to get lots of things done—and done quickly. Plus, messages on portable devices can reach us anytime, anywhere. We feel we need to be available 24/7.

The constant, plugged-in rush to achieve can be harmful. It can lead to stress, illness, depression and strain on the relationships that matter most to us. Can we really do it all?

Get your time on track

The good news is that doing it all is not necessary. You have the power to reach a healthier work-life balance. To do this, develop your own personal strategy for gaining more control.

You might start by tracking everything you do for one week. This includes work-related and personal activities. You may be surprised to see the areas where time is getting away from you. Try to “unplug” where possible.

Learn to say “No” sometimes

It’s not realistic to think you can do everything in life all the time. To combat unrealistic expectations, try these strategies:

  • Take stock of the activities that aren’t helping your career or personal life, and try to reduce the time you spend on them.
  • You can say no to requests; don’t feel guilty if you need to decline a request sometimes.
  • Try to see where your priorities have shifted too far in one direction or another, and then do something about it.

When you’ve cleared some of the extra tasks, you may find that you have more room in your life for activities that bring you pleasure.

Tap Into Helpful Resources

Magellan’s member Web site has helpful tools. These include work-life balance tips, quizzes, exercises and articles. They can help you identify areas of life that you can reorganize to save time and energy.