Work-life balance.

It’s a buzz-phrase that almost everybody has heard, most people aspire to use and almost nobody succeeds at. Why? Why is it so hard to find the right balance, and how can you break away from the pack and succeed where so many have failed?

The answer is both easier and harder than you might think, but if you use these simple tips as starting points, you’ll be miles ahead of the pack.

Take Yourself Offline

You’ve undoubtedly heard of supply and demand. The more there is of something, the less valuable it is. The less there is of something, the more valuable it becomes.

That’s true of literally everything under the sun, including you.
We now live in an “always on” world, where just about everything is available 24/7, and we try to live up to that unspoken expectation ourselves. We stay at the office late in an attempt to get more done. We take work home. Sometimes, we even take work on vacation!

Here’s the thing, though: no matter how much you do, even if you could stay awake and be productive 24 hours a day forever, there will always be more. The work just keeps coming in and piling up, relentlessly.

It’s a sucker’s game to be available all the time, so don’t be one of the suckers. Unplug. Make yourself less available when and where you can. When people see that you’re not at their beck and call 24 hours a day, they’ll come to value the time you are available even more.

The end result will be that you’ll be seen as a more valuable commodity, which will translate into more respect, and it’ll also see you receiving less in the way of mindless busywork. Because you’re not available “whenever,” you’ll tend to be handed more important, more meaningful tasks.

Prioritize

Figure out what the most important tasks of the day are, make a list and get them done. Once the mission-critical stuff is done, either delegate the less important stuff (if you’re able), or prioritize it, and keep working on the most important remaining stuff. Always give yourself a clearly defined stopping point and stick to it!

The critical thing here is to carve out some you time, every day, no matter what. How you use that time is up to you, and you can make that decision once you have it, but it matters. Give yourself the space and time to breathe and enjoy life a little, then do that. You’re worth it.