HOW IMPORTANT IT IS FOR US TO BALANCE HOME AND WORK?

It has always been my effort to write about the issues pertaining to all women over 40. I do extensive research on the topics and try to find out some suitable remedies for the problems. Some of the topics will be relevant for all whereas some will be specific. This week I have selected a very pertinent topic for the women of the 21^st century. In today’s society, we see both men and women working together towards a prosperous future. A recent study by TIMES OF INDIA shows that more working women are married than single. This makes today’s topic more relevant for those who are married, maintaining a family and working as well. Let us see the challenges such women face in everyday life and are there some solutions to manage their issues and make them really blissful?

What is work life balance?

Work-life balance does not mean only a balance between your family life and your professional life but it also includes a number of other aspects like hobbies, leisure, social obligations, health, career, and spirituality.  You need to synchronize each and every aspect as per your priorities. Work-life balance is important for the healthy prospective well-being of an individual. It is important for both men and women, though for women, it is of greater importance. This is so because traditionally, women have been looked upon as care givers and assigned all roles related to maintaining and managing a family. The men were the bread earners and women were the home makers. The scenario has changed a lot. Now a days we see most of the couples are both working. For both, the family and the profession are equally important. Both are enterprising and ambitious. Yet the women, specifically when she becomes the mother, often have to challenge perceptions and stereotypes of the society. She is expected to compromise with her career growth to look after the child.

Why is it important to balance work and home?

In today’s perspective, if you are married, having kids and you are working, you are actually managing two full time jobs together. Managing a home is not less than a full time job as it demands the same attention, same involvement and imposes the same challenges as your regular work does.

Today the working force is faced with numerous challenges, uncertainties, and excessive performance pressure. With the introduction of numerous technologies, every employee needs to continuously upgrade themselves which demands more time to be devoted to work. This is also fueled by extreme levels of competitiveness in the work sphere posing new challenges and problems to workers. These lead to enormous stress for the workers. These experiences are the same for both men and women at work. This makes the balance between work and home extremely important for women as they are expected to manage household work and childbearing tasks along with their job.

If there is no balance between work and home often women face tremendous anxiety and stress. Either they are expected not to aspire to progress in their career beyond a particular level or if some of them choose to prioritize career over family, they experience frustration and guilt in compromising on the time spent with kids and family. In both the situation, working women are forced to make a difficult choice which adds on to their stress and results in poor health. Stresses could lead in the long term to irreversible effects on cardiovascular and immune systems.

Poor work and home balance also negatively impact the ambiance at home. Being a woman you are supposed to do some household chores whether you are working or not. If you are ambitious and are devoting more time at work, your work at home has to be shared by a family member, which causes displeasure. This results in a disharmony at home.

If your home responsibilities continuously take a toll at your work, your efficiency at work will get effected. This may also result in losing many opportunities and by the time you are in a position to accept greater responsibilities, no such position may be available. Thus work-life imbalance prevents us from realizing the full potential we have in our work place as well as at our home.

As a working individual, being successful in advancing careers with the organization is very important. If there is no balance between work and home, you are neither successful at work nor can you be a happy wife and proud mother. Thus there will be a lower life-satisfaction.

With tremendous work pressure and aspiration to excel, working women are seen to work for over 45 hours /week which includes multiple responsibilities like heavy meeting schedules,  business trips, on top of managing the daily routine responsibilities of life and home. Thus they are left with very little time for themselves which aggravates unhappiness.

If balancing work and home has so many implications in our lives, is there something we can do to take care of the situation?

How can we balance our home and work?

Employee's work and life imbalance do have serious effects on the organizations. The performance competition is high among the employees and the organization also wants consistent growth. In such a situation the employees who are unable to suitably manage their home and work and are often seen to drag themselves, or a highly stressed can bring down the overall productivity of the organization. Moreover, with the women empowerment air around, the governments are also monitoring different policies to help out the women to bring work-life balance.

In this article let us not talk about what the organizations and the governments can do to improve the situation. Let us focus on how we as an individual can help ourselves to bring work and home balance and be blissful.

At Home:

Take care of your health: Being a working family woman you have a number of people depending on you for their well-being. You can take care of your responsibilities only if you are healthy and fit. Be sure to eat healthy foods that feed your body with good nutrition, and ensure to do some kind of regular exercise, so that you can work out the stresses of everyday life.

Set your priorities: Setting priorities is important as it can make your drive your talents and genius in the right direction to get the best result. Address the issues which are long pending. This will help you to reduce stress.

Don’t carry your office home: Your family is your asset. It deserves your un-interrupted attention. Your husband, your kids should get some of your time. When at home try to keep office issues a bay. Your family should understand their importance in your life. Restrict official calls in your private time. Avoid job spills over into the home and you won’t get home spill over into work.

Delegate work at home: You are managing both home and office that does not mean that you have become a super woman. So avoid doing all household chores alone. Distribute all the chores among different family members, keeping some vital work for yourself. Your husband should know how to make the morning tea and your kid should make up his own bed. This will reduce your work load and stress.

Take out some time for yourself: Take out some time from your daily schedule for yourself. Do things that will rejuvenate you. You may do some meditation, yoga and even join a dance class. Just make feel your own importance. This will fill you with lots of positive energy.

Take enough sleep: 7-8 hrs sleep is extremely important to detoxify your mind and body. Good-night sleep ensures that you are better prepared to face the challenges coming up the next day. So if need be, compromise on watching TV shows, web series and mobile usage to get atleast 8 hrs sleep.

At Work:

Know your commitments: This is of prime importance since you need to know what exactly your employer wants from you. You need to know your potential as well. Knowing your job well you can distribute your time at office judiciously.

Delegate work: Learn to delegate work among your sub-ordinates and make them accountable. If required do not hesitate to take help from co-workers. You should not try to do all the work yourself and take unnecessary stress.

Avoid negative people: There will always be some people around you who will continuously utter negative words and try to drag you down. Just try to ignore them and avoid their acquaintance.

Don’t carry your baggage to the office: As you cannot bring office at your home equally you cannot carry your home issues at the office. Do not try to justify your absenteeism or being late at the office. Your organization will not see your potential if you have home spills over your work.

Avoid distractions during work: Being a working lady every moment is worthy for you. So avoid unnecessary conversations, internet serffings, and long lunch breaks. Instead, use that time to be more productive at work.

Take justified leaves: You deserve a break at work. Take the assigned leaves and enjoy with your family. Your job is a part of your life, not your entire life. Believe me, taking breaks will increase your efficiency and make you more productive.

The juggling between your home and work will continue. Do not take it so seriously. Life is like this. The more you tighten the grip…the more it appears to slip.