Work is an integral part of our day-to-day life. It pays our bills and gives us a sense of direction and purpose to carry our day forward. It is essential to have work in our lives. Without it, our brains will go bonkers. It keeps one occupied and puts a brake on the habit of overthinking. As the competition in every field increases globally, so is our stress at the cellular level. Because due to increased competition we are asked to work more to meet the demand and out beat our competitor. The cutthroat competition in every field has become a mad rat race where everyone is running to outperform others. We perform more mental and less physical work with each passing day due to changes in social construct. Work has left us with less time to look after ourselves. We stay glued to the screen from morning till the work shift is over and barely get time to cook or exercise. That is why we have seen a rise in demand for convenience food in the market. Though they serve the purpose, are they healthy options to have one? Not only food habits but our relationship is also affected due to work. When we work, we are, in a way, trading off our time for something else. The time which should be spent with our loved ones goes into working, and gradually a rift is created between relationships.
What Are The Implications Of Overworking?
Working is fine but overworking is like overtaxing your energy to a disastrous level. Although everything is good when done at a balanced level, excess of anything is like poison; it will slowly kill you. In addition, overworking causes over-exertion and might push you towards smoking, alcohol, and other bad habits.
Overworking might lead to:
1. Mental Health Issues:
Over-exerting yourself with work might push you towards mental health deterioration. It starts with taking stress that gradually develops into anxiety and ultimately makes you slip into depression. At first, it might not be evident, but the symptoms become visible with time. A lot of studies are going on these days on work-related depression. The findings suggest that frequent breaks and some recreational activities should be done in the workplace to break the monotony due to overworking.
2. Physical Health Issues:
Work leaves us with very little time to look after ourselves. We barely get time to do our chores and self-care routine. But if we don’t manage, we will be doomed. We all know that “all work and no play makes jack a dull boy; all play and no work makes jack a happy boy.” Of course, we can’t always play to be happy, but we can at least play some games or exercise in our daily routine to keep ourselves happy and fit because a healthy mind resides in a healthy body. Also, some daily physical activities might save you from various lifestyle diseases like obesity, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, etc.
3. Emotional Health Issues:
Often, due to constant verbal abuse from the boss, criticism from coworkers at work, complaints from clients, etc., we strive to push our limits beyond our threshold level, leading to burnout. This drives us to try for a vent in the form of cigarettes or alcohol. Job burnout is work-related stress which triggers an emotional response. A lot of work on the head gives less time to deal with the burnout, and thus, when not addressed, surfaces in different forms make us more irritable, cranky, depressive, etc.
4. Relationship Issues:
Relationships make our life meaningful and fulfilling. Being with your loved ones increases your happy hormones and reduces your stress. To make a relationship bloom, one needs to nurture it with love, care, and time. Time is a crucial factor here; when we stop giving time to our loved ones, the relationship starts dying slowly, which is evident in the form of altercations, complaints, etc. A flip side to this is that when your work is suffering, your relationship also starts to suffer, and vice versa. So for everything to work smoothly, we should learn how to manage between work and life effectively and practically, as this could save one from many troubles.
Impactful Ways To Balance Your Work And Life:
Maintaining a work-life balance might look tough, but it could be easily managed with little awareness and strategy. Some important tips are provided below that might help you with balancing your work and personal life effectively.
1. Prioritizing The Areas That Are Important In Your Life:
We can’t be superman in real life, but we can be real heroes. To be a real hero, you don’t have to save the world from troubles, but you have to protect yourself from the primary concerns, which would minimize the secondary problems that come with it. This could be done by making a list of things in order of priority and allotting time you should give to each of those things daily or weekly. For Instance, your work should be your priority but needn’t be taken home after office hours. Likewise, put your health, relationship, family, and other things on the priority list and put your time and effort there, too, daily because these things should matter as they walk hand in hand with you in your tough times.
2. Managing Time Effectively:
Time management is a skill that should be managed effectively. If one is adept at it, one will have spare time to work without panicking at the last moment. Various ways could do time management. Such as:
2.1 Commute:
Commuting takes a lot of your time. Also it drains you of energy. Traveling everyday to work place gets cumbersome when you are running short on time to reach office. The one way to manage time that is spent in commuting is that to relocate near your office.
2.2 Refrain Yourself From Office Gossip:
Office gossip is fun, but it won’t lead you anywhere. It might just entertain you for a few minutes, but it is not worth engaging with as it would only waste your time and increase your stress due to last-minute panic when you struggle with time.
2.3 Pomodoro Techniques:
Pomodoro technique is like going in the zen mode but with your work. This involves setting a timer for a particular task and finishing the task within that stipulated time frame. It is constructive in avoiding the distraction at bay and makes you more productive by letting you finish your work in a specified time.
3. Let Go Perfection:
We often look for perfection in everything we do and forget that perfection is just a conjecture. Once we understand this, the urge to overexert ourselves to attain something subjective could be arrested. And this would save you from a lot of headaches and give you ample time in your head to work. But this surely doesn’t mean compromising your work quality.
Conclusion:
Work-life balance is an individual’s ability to meet work and family commitments and non-work management on a day-to-day basis. With increased globalization and market demands, the work structure has completely changed. Today, we want everything in the blink of an eye. This attitude to deliver everything instantly and prove that we are best than others has created a lot of competition in the market because everyone wants to be the best nowadays. Nobody wants to be left behind, so to outdo others; we are overworking to exhaustion. And this increased workload is negatively affecting our lives, as is evident in research studies conducted by WHO or other premier institutes. Work that comes with the jobs cannot be avoided as it provides money essential for survival, but overworking could be reduced by effective management and prioritizing techniques.
Reference:
Forbes, D.J.L. (2014, Oct 20, ). 6 Tips For Better Work-Life Balance. [Weblog]. Retrieved 18 October 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahlee/2014/10/20/6-tips-for-better-work-life-balance/?sh=719eecb529ff
