Work/Life Balance..Who Are You?

The question was posed to me today.  Are you over worked?  I don't think so.  I work plenty of hours but I still get other things done.  I do occasionally think about work on the weekend but seldom anymore on vacations. Of course none of that comes without planing and effort.  Where do you fall? Well in case, you're not sure here is what some other folks think...

Forbes.com did a survey on-line of 2000 people asking them a series of questions about their sense of productivity, their feelings about work-life balance and how overworked they feel. The respondents included business owners, executives, managers, employees and freelancers. Their answers are revealing.

Among everyone surveyed, 87%, said they feel overworked. Of that group, 38% said that despite working too hard, they are satisfied with their work-life balance.

Among all 2,000 people who took the survey, including those who aren’t overworked, 42% said they are happy with their work-life balance; 46% said they feel overloaded from time to time but only 11.5% said they often feel stressed and overburdened.

If you do fall into that 11% below are 7 essential steps to avoid burnout from DumbLittleMan .com

1. Plan ahead
   Have a clear schedule.
2. Set aside non-work/leisure time
   Work can never replace what non-work activities can give you.
3. Define clear expectations with others
   Often times your colleagues, manager or clients have sudden, last minute requests where they need your assistance. This ripples out and causes a backlog in your own work. Without enforcing your boundaries, these will keep happening in the future
4. Stop overworking. Have a clean cut off for work
   Set a clean cut-off for your work.
5. Cut off the 'busy work'
   There are always fire-fighting activities and administrative tasks in every line of work.
6. Talk to someone
   Having a listening ear helps you to sort out mental clutter.
7. Maintain a healthy lifestyle
   Working under crunch deadlines, you might often forgo sleep to get work done. However, the impact of lost sleep piles up over time, to a stage when it weighs heavily on you.