What is a healthy work-life balance, and how can you achieve it?

What Is an Unhealthy Work-Life Balance?

It’s easy for the boundaries between work and personal life to blur, quickly causing time and energy imbalances in each area. An unhealthy work-life balance often involves dedicating excessive time to work or stressing about your job to the detriment of your personal life and mental health. Rather than relaxing or participating in activities you enjoy, time “away” from the office is filled with after-hours work calls, finishing up work tasks for the following day, or ruminating on your to-do list. 

The imbalance may start with something simple, like taking work home a couple of times to simply finish it on the couch, perhaps surrounded by your family and friends. While this might seem like a practical compromise, it can prevent you from being fully present in your personal life. By blending work tasks with your leisure time, you disrupt the boundary between these spheres, conditioning your brain to associate personal spaces with work-related stress. Over time, your home environment may no longer feel like a sanctuary from professional pressures.

Work and life bubbles can also get muddled when your personal life starts encroaching on your ability to do your job. Personal distractions—such as frequent calls, unplanned family visits, or managing personal matters during work hours—can lead to missed deadlines or a sense of being overwhelmed, further complicating your ability to maintain balance.

Common habits that can eat away at a healthy work-life balance include: 

• Working late and on weekends
• Answering emails or work calls after hours
• Allowing personal matters to interfere excessively with work responsibilities 
• Bringing children to work unannounced
• Failing to complete your work due to non-work obligations

Achieving a better work-life balance requires recognizing these behaviors and making intentional changes to preserve boundaries between work and personal life.

What Does It Mean to Have a Work-Life Balance? What Does a Good Work-Life Balance Look Like?

Individuals with a strong work-life balance establish clear boundaries that allow them to separate their personal and professional lives. In general, a healthy work-life balance involves avoiding consistent overtime, refraining from completing work tasks outside of designated hours, and dedicating your full attention to work-related responsibilities during work hours. Similarly, personal time should be reserved for relaxation, hobbies, and connections with loved ones, free from work-related distractions.

Dividing work and personal life looks different for every person, but this separation can ensure that both areas of your life are getting enough attention, allowing you to reap the benefits of both without driving either into the ground.

Why Work-Life Balance Matters

Work-life balance is critically important for everyone, as it’s a vital part of reducing stress and preventing chronic fatigue and burnout. Clear boundaries between your job responsibilities and your personal life allow you to fully engage at work and give you permission to fully disconnect when you are “off the clock”. 

Work-life balance also promotes a healthy sense of identity that is not solely defined by responsibilities and roles in your job and encourages regular engagement in your social support network, self-care, and wellness behaviors.

Why Do People Struggle With Work-Life Balance?

Maintaining a healthy work-life balance can be especially difficult in certain cultures, like that of the United States, where worker productivity and “hustling” are prioritized and even respected. Overworking is often celebrated or rewarded, which can make it hard to slow down and prioritize your wants and needs as a human, including your mental health. 

Technology further blurs the lines between work and personal life. Especially if you work at a desk or remotely, email and digital connections make it easier for people to be reached at all times. Some companies and managers even use it as a way to require their employees to be available 24/7. All of these factors make keeping work and personal life separate difficult. Without firm boundaries and clear expectations, work can easily start to bleed into other areas of your life.

What Are 5 Steps to Achieving Work-Life Balance?

If you’re struggling with work-life balance, here are five strategies you can use to regain focus and control:  

1. Set firm boundaries: Set clear boundaries on your working hours and time and openly communicate with your boss and your coworkers about necessary boundaries. If it’s absolutely necessary to bring work home once in a while, establish limits on people contacting you, the amount of work you’ll do, and what time/how much time you’ll dedicate to it.
2. Establish priorities: Make a to-do list and prioritize items on that list for the day to help make your hours at work count. Managing your time well in this way can help boost productivity and efficiency. If you have a particularly heavy workload and know it will require some extra hours in the coming days or weeks, then outline a plan so that your expectations and responsibilities for each day are clear.
3. Schedule breaks: Allowing yourself to take regular breaks during the day can help you optimize your performance. No one is meant to work continuously throughout the day—by scheduling intermittent breaks, you can give yourself the rest you need without wasting time struggling to motivate yourself or keep your pace up.
4. Disconnect: Disconnect from the virtual work world as soon as you get home. If possible, put your phone on “do not disturb” and put it away when you get home. Try to be present for your family and allow yourself to disengage from work or enjoy your personal time without checking in.
5. Set effective goals: Try to set goals that are attainable. By making goals realistic and achievable, you can maintain your motivation to reach them without overworking yourself and adding to your work stress. This could involve adjusting your productivity expectations at work, or even just making a point not to work after 5 p.m. on Fridays.

Each of these tips can help you structure your time at work in a way that works for you, allowing you to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

If you are still struggling with separating your work and personal life, you can also seek professional help and counseling services to make sure that you are receiving the best possible support. They can listen to you explain your challenges and come up with effective solutions.