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We are living in a busy world and often our place of work is a source of stress and workload. Thus, it is crucial to maintain balance and not to let worries, tiredness, and stress influence our personal life.
If it is difficult for you to balance different aspects of your life, don’t worry – millions of people feel the same. According to the latest reports, 58% of Canadians are tired of necessity of juggling multiple roles – work, family, health, volunteer, friends, and home.
It is reported that a low quantity of stress increases our efficiency and mental health. But how is it possible to notice that overloading is already harmful to your personality and health? Here are a few signs:
- You no longer control your life;
- You feel guilty of neglecting certain roles;
- You can’t concentrate on tasks;
- You feel tired all the time.
Is there a way out or this is a price we have to pay for living in the 21st century? Let’s find it out!
Challenges we are facing
Technologies have occupied an important place in our lives and being always online and connected means that it is much harder to separate work from personal life. According to the Ernst & Young study, 24% of Americans said that they can’t manage their work-life balance and the situation is becoming worse.
This problem concerns not only 9-5 workers but also those, who have a chance to work flexible hours. Evening emails and calls mean that the job can’t fit into the working hours. According to the 2020 Modern Families Index over 50% of modern parents is able to work part-time or from home. However, it turns out that these parents struggle to meet the demands of work and home at the same time.
Over 30% of people have to fake illness to have some time with their families or to solve personal matters. This is one of the brightest indicators that many companies miss out on the human element when approaching their workers.
Successful examples of maintaining work-life balance
Every year a group of experts works on their World Happiness Report, ranking 156 countries based on their level of happiness. The report first took place in 2012 and since then Nordic countries including Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, plus Greenland and Faroe Islands, always top the list.
According to the report experts, the key to Nordic happiness is the ability to maintain a balance between work and personal life. Scandinavians know that it’s impossible to earn all the money in the world and are in a constant search of balancing all aspects of their life.
You will hardly find anyone in a Finnish office after 5 PM. They will go home, grab a beer, unwind with a hobby (surprisingly, one in three Finns gambles every week and 83% gamble once per year) or simply enjoy a book by the fireplace.
In August 2019, future Finland’s prime minister Sanna Marin said that a four-day workweek or a six-hour workday may be a solution to let people spend time with their families, on hobbies and leisure.
Even though Finland doesn’t have the highest GDP level among Nordic countries, it still tops the list according to the Happiness Research Institute and experts are sure that a proper work-life balance and social safety have greatly contributed to such a result.
Drawbacks of the work-life balance theory
To be completely objective, let’s have a closer look at the drawbacks of the work-life balance approach. First, the whole concept is wrong because the work is in opposition to life itself.
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, offers to replace the word ‘balance’ with the word ‘harmony’ because when a person is happy at work, he is happy in personal life, and vice versa. And we shouldn’t forget that life is full of twists and turns, so the idea of balancing everything is rather unrealistic.
Importance of balance
The concept of work-life balance has been gaining popularity for the past several years. People are tired of overworking, chasing profits, and missing out the important events in their families’ lives.
Even though some sceptics say that the word ‘balance’ is not suitable, it is clear as day that we need a new instrument for improving the quality of our lives.
