Tips to Balance Work and Personal Life During Career Transitions

Ever felt like you're walking a tightrope between your professional and personal life, especially when you're in the middle of a career transition? Trust me, you're not alone. 

Whether you're switching industries, starting a new job, or even taking the leap into freelancing, finding that perfect balance can feel like trying to mix oil and water.

But fear not! In this article, we’re going to dive into some practical and doable tips to help you stay afloat and maybe even enjoy the ride. Before we move ahead to looking at some strategies for balancing career change with personal life, we need to understand the crux of work-life balanc

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7 Effective Strategies to Sustain Work-Life Balance while Transitioning Career
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1. Draw the Line: Carve Out Your Work Hours and Personal Time

It’s easy to blur the lines between work and personal life, but setting clear boundaries is key. Drawing the line helps you enjoy your downtime and be more focused when you’re on the clock. 

Sean Peek, a senior analyst and an expert on business ownership points out that it's impossible to achieve anything resembling work-life balance if you don’t set boundaries. He advises setting work-life boundaries to achieve a healthy work-life balance.

Sean believes it is necessary to determine what the ideal work-life integration looks like for you.

“Once you know what matters most, you can work on setting boundaries around those activities so that whether you’re at work or home, you can be more fully present for those around you.”

Sean emphasizes staying connected but setting a limitation to it.

“Vary your response time – sometimes answering back immediately and sometimes waiting a few hours or a day to respond to an email”

Setting a schedule is equally important for a healthy work-life balance. Sean advises to:

“Give yourself a schedule and stick to it. If you work from home, try to start at the same time every day rather than sleeping in (or starting work too early).”

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2. Prioritize Like a Pro: Separating the Critical from the Casual

Why bother with prioritizing? It’s all about zeroing in on what truly matters. By ranking your tasks and goals, you hit the crucial ones first, boosting your productivity, cutting down stress, and making steady strides toward your dreams at work and home. 

Cruz Gamboa, a top coaching voice in LinkedIn believes priority management is more important than that of time management. 

“The key is to focus more on the essentials and less on “stuff.” Prioritization is the art of elevating essentials”

Cruz advises getting rid of distractions and focusing on the essentials. He suggests incorporating the 80-20 Pareto principle to help prioritize better.

“80% of your success comes from 20% of your efforts. So focus on the 20%”

Udara Fernando, a Certified Management Accountant reflect on his journey and how Prioritization Matrix tool became a game-changer in his life.

“Before I discovered the Prioritization Matrix, I often found myself overwhelmed by an ever-growing to-do list.”

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3. Unplug and Unwind: Avoid Burnout 

According to the American Institute of Stress, 83 percent of US workers suffer from daily work-related stress, and 76 percent of workers blame workplace stress for taking a toll on personal relationships.

Dolly Parton, American singer-songwriter and an actress in a famous twitter post said, "Don't get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life." 

It's a reminder to not get lost in the grind. Work's important, sure, but don't forget to enjoy the ride, spend time with loved ones, and savor the little things.

Getting too engrossed in work will drain all the energy to socialize and give time to other important aspects of life.

Let's take the example of Rohan Jain, consultant at Boston Consulting Group and a published author. Rohan, in a comment to a Quora question on the importance of work-life balance, expressed how his over-attachment to work made him mentally and physically detached.  Rohan shares, 

“I used to dance every weekend, but somehow ended up deprioritizing that. I used to schedule a post for LinkedIn/ Quora every other day, but hardly posted anything the past few months.”

He further mentioned about changes he wants to make and how his decision to resume dancing reenergized him, 

“For the first time in the past 2 months, I got an ounce of my energy back.”

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4. Self Care for Empowerment

Switching careers is a big deal, so don’t forget to take care of yourself. Prioritize self-care to stay balanced, motivated, and ready for whatever comes next.

Belvin Claire, Professor and Program Director at Maryland University of Integrative Health believes in the importance of self-care for a sustainable work-life balance.

“If you’ve been burning the candle at both ends and are feeling frazzled, it may be time to reflect upon your current self-care regimen”

Belvin emphasises on practising mindfulness,

“A regular mindfulness practice is an effective and inexpensive way to combat burnout… While searching out a local class or teacher is the best way to get started, apps like Buddhify and HeadSpace are great options….”. 

Belvin warns about sleep deprivation and its adverse effects on cognitive ability and advice,

“It can be tempting to sacrifice sleep for work or personal time, but …Prioritize your sleep, and you may find that you’re better able to cope with life’s challenges”.

According to Belvin, it's a good idea to plan your snacks and meals while at work and to eat them outside of your workspace.

“Leaving your desk while eating provides an opportunity to get your body moving and may also help prevent mindless snacking…Set a reminder on your phone or calendar so that your snack/meal breaks don’t slip off your radar”.

Belvin further recommend maintaining a daily rhythm to better synchronise your body and mind.

“By creating a degree of predictability in your daily rhythm, you can support your circadian processes. Waking up and going to bed at about the same time each day will help to synchronize your body clock”.

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5. Cultivate a Supportive Network: Leaning on family, friends, or professional networks

Jeff Shepherd, who describes himself as a small-town farm kid turned time management master, believes that with a supportive network in place, achieving work-life balance is within reach.

Jeff provides a 10-step mental model and an insightful analogy to think of one’s network as a garden that needs to be nurtured.

“1. First, identify the plants (your priorities and goals) that you want to grow in your garden.

2. Then, seek out seeds (people) with similar needs and desires to plant alongside your plants.

3. Attend events and join groups related to your interests to find more seeds to add to your garden.

4. Be open to meeting new seeds and building relationships with them.

5. Water your garden regularly by maintaining communication with your network.

6. Offer support and help to your seeds by providing them with nutrients (resources) they need to grow.

7. Set boundaries and communicate your needs clearly to keep your garden healthy and balanced.

8. Be flexible and adaptable to changing circumstances like weather conditions in a garden.

9. Celebrate the growth of your plants with your network by sharing your successes and milestones.

10. Continuously evaluate and adjust your garden as needed to ensure it continues to thrive.

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6. Get It Together: List and Handy Tools for Staying Organized

British great Edmund Burke put it well when he said, “Good order is the foundation of all good things”. Being organized cuts down on stress and chaos. You’ll always know where your things are, saving time and avoiding frustration.

Writing down your daily tasks can seriously boost your productivity and cut down on stress. Kelsey Alpaio, an associate editor of Harvard Business Review, has tried and tested ways to decide which method works best for her and has given her expert advice on how to decide the best method that will work for every unique individual. 

Her method to identify the best-personalized to-do list comprises first-hand experiments.

On the first day, she swapped her to-do list for scheduling tasks directly in your digital calendar. She believes this method is for people who like structure, who aren’t afraid of a crowded calendar, or who love planning ahead.

“Once Monday morning came around, I managed to get it together. When that first *ding* chimed, notifying me it was for my task, I was ready to go. I didn’t have to use any brain power to figure out what assignment to tackle, and I finished it with 10 minutes to spare”. 

The following day, she stuck with a running list but focused on just one thing at a time. She believes this method is good for daydreamers, multitaskers, or people who are easily distracted.

The tactic I tried Tuesday, which I call the “do one thing” method…The core concept is: Keep your to-do list, but use it only as a reference — not something to work off of. Every time you want to tackle a task, write it down on a Post-It and stick it where you can see it. Then, hide your full list and focus. Once you finish your chosen task, cross it off your list, and start again”.

On the third day, she gave a shot at digital task managers. She believes this method is for techies, people who love using their phones and have a lot of tasks to organize or who are working on a variety of projects.

“For this experiment, I decided to use an app called Todoist. When you Google “best digital task managers,” Todoist is one of the first ones to surface.”

On the last day, Kelsey went on to make three to-do-list. She believes this method is for people who have competing priorities or who don’t need much support to stay focused.

“List #1 is for important non-time-sensitive tasks (aka things you need to do eventually but not today). List #2 is for tasks you need to complete today. List #3 is for tasks that have been on your to-do list forever but that you’re never going to get done.”

Dinesh Kumar Arivarasan, a tech enthusiast and a mentor provides a list of digital tools like Toggl Track and RescueTime to help you track how you spend your time. At the same time, Asana and Trello keep your tasks organized.

He also suggests trying Freedom or Cold Turkey Blocker. To avoid distractions.

He believes, 

“by leveraging the right tools and apps, individuals can turn technology into an ally that helps manage time efficiently, reduce distractions, and create a clear boundary between work and personal life.”

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7. Pause and Reflect: Your Life and Career Goals

Tired of aimless goal-setting? Pausing to reflect can lead to more purposeful and achievable career goals. Firstly, it's important to know yourself better in order to give your best.

Preethi Subramaniam, a transformative coach, gives some doable advice on setting goals. 

She suggests framing your goals by distinguishing between 'Needs' and 'Wants.' 

“I start with setting my own professional goals for myself, which is something that I personally need and want to develop or attain. For example, my professional goals could look like this: I need to build communication skills, I need to develop negotiation skills… I want to make $yyy in x years, I want to change my job/role in x years.”

She advises you to build upon your unique preferences like she did. 

“I preferred to learn soft skills such as communications, negotiations, report writing more than specific technical skills. Although both are equally important, I experience softer skills to be more useful in general.”

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Impact of Ignoring Work-Life Balance

Neglecting work-life balance can lead to chronic stress, strained relationships, and health problems. It also undermines your personal happiness and professional potential.

Let’s take the example of Sameedha Salvi who commented on Quora on how her neglecting the balance between work and personal life deteriorated her health.

 She says:

“In 2019, while I got engrossed myself too much into organizing events, I completely forgot eating food on time. In this process, my haemoglobin count dropped down to 4.5”. 

She remembers her doctor being concerned looking at her report. 

She further mentioned, “They immediately admitted me to the hospital, and how much ever they tried, they could t increase my hb count. So, they were left with the last option - Blood transfusion. I recovered in 2 weeks; but I got a lesson of my life in those days”.

Another fellow Quora commenter Dushka Zapata, speaks about his experience with neglecting work-life balance and how his introspection of life saved him from drowning in work. 

He contemplated, “One of the reasons why work-life balance is hard is because we attribute the problem to our environment when it’s us. I am the problem”. 

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Conclusion

We all have different ideas of what 'work-life balance' means because our priorities are unique. But we can all agree on one thing – we all want to be happy and feel good, after all, "We are in the same boat brother." 

Balancing career changes with personal life is a juggling act, but with these strategies, you can manage it smoothly. Remember, it’s all about integrating work and personal time in a way that suits you best. Incorporating some daily habits will go a long way in transforming your career and give you satisfaction.

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