In the present Information & Technology dominated healthcare industry, nurses often find themselves struggling for achieving a healthy work-life balance. With the increasing sophistication in professionalism, it becomes a great challenge for nurses to set priorities between work and their personal life.
The work and life balance is a continuous process, it cannot be set as a goal, as you will not always be able to achieve this balance, and you are bound to make mistakes initially. The imbalance in work and personal life can result in increase in stress level, unhappiness and downfall in productivity.
The following few steps can help to maintain balance so that you are able to enjoy the both to your optimum.
Setting the Priorities
First of all identify which are” to be” and which “should be” your priorities. Ignore the “should be priorities” and arrange “to be priorities” starting from the top to the lesser one. This will help you evaluate your where you need to focus your time & energy.
Delegation of Work
At work place sometimes if you feel that with the current work in hand you will not be able to do justice to a new work or you will not be able to perform that task to that high standards as the authorities might be expecting from you then cultivate the habit to say a polite no or delegate the work to someone else .Always remember that perfection is no attainable, it should be used as a guide. Perfection is a means not an end.
Sharing Responsibilities
You cannot do two works at the same time so give full attention to the work in hand. While on work do work and while with family be with the family whole heartedly. The personal essential works should be split up between the partners as per their preference, and unwanted tasks should be divided evenly or needed can be to done from an outsource labor.
Time for Hobbies
You must keep in mind that every job including the one you consider the best, create stress. You must have some hobbies to keep away the stress. If you yourself are in a happy state of mind only then you can be a good mother, partner and a professional. You must take some time off for yourself, for at least one week in a year, to recharge your batteries so that you are most energetic and happy. During that period remain aloof from the surroundings switch off your cell and computer if need be.
Setting up Boundaries
To maintain work life balance certain boundaries should be set and then enforced harshly if required. For example, while taking meals turn off your cell phone .These will trouble you in the start but soon you will start appreciating them when you will realize that with the help of boundaries you are able to achieve the targets well in time. You may have to change the boundaries, habits and recast your work load.
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