How to Effectively Sustain a Work-Life Balance During the Covid-19 Pandemic

It’s no new information that the coronavirus pandemic caught us by surprise last year. At the time, no one was thinking of a work-life balance or anything of that sort. However, as soon as the virus came along, we found ourselves making rather uncomfortable adjustments to our lives.

Our movements became restricted. Unfortunately, several thousand people across the world got laid off. Many of those who were not laid off had to work from home almost indefinitely.

We’re willing to take a wild guess and say that you’ve also had to work from home for quite some time. On the bright side of this new arrangement, you get to work from the comfort of your home or anywhere else. However, on the dark side, you’ll have to deal with creating a work-life balance during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sadly, this isn’t as easy as it may sound or seem. For that reason, we’ve come up with a few different ways you can go about it. They are:

Define your workspace

If you must create a work-life balance during the Covid-19 pandemic, you must define where you work. You see, the human mind is designed to function in specific ways. If there are no barriers between your areas of work, play, relaxation, feeding, sleep, your brain will likely mix them all.

You might want to work on your bed, and your mind will immediately begin inducing sleep, even if you weren’t sleepy before. You might feel like getting work done on your couch, and you’ll suddenly start getting this irresistible urge to see a movie. The list goes on, but we are sure you understand our point by now.

You need to train your mind to understand that certain places are for work. That way, when you go there, you can focus squarely on what needs to be done instead of getting distracted and creating a backlog of work for you to take care of later.

This helps to maintain your work-life balance by ensuring that you do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. That way, you can finish work as and when due and attend to other parts of your life.

Establish proper boundaries

Look, you’re a human. This fact remains no matter how productive or goal/result-oriented you might be. For that reason, you need to understand that you cannot work all day and all night.

So, establish proper boundaries with your bosses and clients, especially if you’re a freelancer. Help them understand that you’ll be available at specific periods only. Even if they live in a different timezone, find a working period that’ll function adequately for both of you and stick to it.

The danger in flouting this rule is that you’ll get messages and tasks late at night when you’re preparing to go to bed, and you’ll be expected to deliver. Unless they’re paying substantially for your time or the effects of sleep deprivation on your health, you can’t let them waltz in and out of your schedule as they please. Even if they were, it still isn’t advisable.

Manage your time properly

Having set proper boundaries, you must remember that it’s still easy for you to get distracted. Under normal circumstances, you’d have to deal with HR for coming late, and that alone is enough motivation to be up each morning very early.

But, while working from home, things are slightly different. Every day feels like Saturday, and you might be tempted to treat every day like the weekend. However, nothing is more dangerous than that.

So, manage your time correctly and ensure that you do your work and meet your targets when you need to. That is the only way you can indeed maintain a work-life balance because if you don’t, work will eventually spill over into other parts of your life.

See Also: Three Unbeatable Ways to Accelerate Your Professional Growth

Move around often

Your health is an essential part of your life. Working from home can be fun, but it can also be a great avenue to forget that you’re meant to move around.

Unfortunately, this is incredibly bad for you. Science says that you could be shortening your lifespan with every four hours or so that you spend sitting without moving. The list of consequences is endless.

So, move around a little. Instead of taking meetings on your seat, walk and talk. Instead of sitting down and writing those reports for several hours, find time to go on occasional breaks. During that period, you could walk a little or take little yoga stretches.

Connect with other people

We, humans, are social creatures. However you choose to see it, the face is and remains that humans like to connect with other humans. It’s what’s best for our mental state and, coincidentally, for creating a work-life balance during the Covid-19 pandemic.

So, as much as you want to work and stay productive, remember to connect with your friends and family. Everyone is going through a lot during the pandemic. It’s only fitting that you reach out to those who matter.

Takeaway

Above all this, remember to be kind to yourself. There will be days when you’ll work too much or too little. It doesn’t make you worthless, and it certainly doesn’t mean you’re the worst professional that’s walked the earth. You faulted. All you have to do under those circumstances is forgive yourself and get right back to doing what is right.