Work-Life Balance in the New Normal

Author: PhDr. Iva Linda Maruščáková & Mgr. Lea Jakob – 22/11/2021

614 days. The number of days we have lived since the beginning of the first lockdown in the Czech Republic – and our new way of living and working that it brought with it. There has been a lot of talk about how we should maintain a “new” work-life balance. But as Matt Haig wrote on Twitter – we should above all not forget that the way we worked before Covid was not exactly a great example of Work-Life Balance for most of us:

„Lockdown has posed a huge mental health challenge. But our “normal” world of long working hours, stressful commutes, overworked lives, hectic crowds, shopping malls, pointless meetings, ecological destruction, and 24/7 everything has been hardly a mental health utopia. A new normal, please.“

Matt Haig, 2021

Looking at our lives through the lens of a positive Covid approach has offered most of us a great opportunity to seek – and find – our own and perhaps even better Work-Life Balance system.

HERE ARE SOME TIPS THAT CURRENT STUDIES AND OUR CLIENTS‘ APPROACH REVEAL AS THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY TO CREATE IT:

TIP 1:

Focus on solutions, not negative emotions: Using a positive psychology approach, as well as a rational approach, helps us regain control over situations where we have partially lost it – as in the case of Covid times and our previously used Work-Life Balance approach.

TIP 2:

Používejte různé denní rozvrhy pro režim v kanceláři, vzdálený režim a hybridní režim – nikdy nepoužívejte pro všechny stejný – buďte flexibilní a chytří: Důvod je velmi jednoduchý: různé situace jsou pro nás výzvou s různými potřebami a úkoly.

TIP 3:

Learn about new ways to plan and rest. Recent research has shown that people who work in a home office environment tend to work more and plan fewer breaks. Taking 5-10 minute breaks every 50-60 minutes has been shown to be an effective way to quickly restore our focus and energy. These effects do not apply to 20 minute breaks after 2 hours of work. Longer breaks of around 30 minutes are recommended after 2-4 hours of work.

According to this study, the following activities are most effective for resting during work:

• Physical activity: increases blood flow to areas of the brain involved in concentration.
• Meditation: disconnects from work-related thoughts and increases concentration
• Learning something new, playing games: increases motivation and self-confidence
• Helping others: increases solidarity and positive emotions
• Setting new goal(s) and plans for the future: allows you to detach from details and perceive the larger context

TIP 4:

New ways to relax: Sleep and productive naps. Deep regeneration strengthens the ability to cope with daily challenges, be mentally balanced and achieve results: the ability to maintain attention, logical thinking and other cognitive functions that we use when performing work tasks are regenerated.

Napping during work hours: is a new approach, ideal to try during the home office.

How to do it:

• Set rules for it in the office (with your boss and colleagues).
• Find a quiet and peaceful place
• Do not nap for more than 20 minutes + 10 minutes to rest.
• Ideally, according to your biorhythm, between 2 and 4 pm

TIP 5:

Work within boundaries: not only in relationships, but also in your physical environment and roles.

“Gates”: symbolic boundaries in the form of a line or a simple closing/opening of a door help our brain switch from work to rest and vice versa.

TIP 6:

Use these tips to increase productivity:

Attention Economy: Our time is now considered an economic category (attention economy): advertisers pay for our views, our employer pays us for our time, we pay for someone else’s time (e.g. a massage or laptop repair).

Awareness of our own attention: Quite often we know which tasks we need to do, but we easily get distracted. We then think that we are so busy and our days are too short. However, in reality we are not productive. We lack awareness of what we are paying our attention to.

So what is productivity? Being productive means that we know what needs to be done and we do it in real time.

AN EXTRA GOLDEN TIP FOR PRODUCTIVITY IN THE NEW NORMAL: META-AWARENESS.

At first, we may be very unaware of how much we are losing focus. It is a good idea to take a 60-minute time frame, set a timer, and ask yourself, “What have I been focusing on in the past hour? Do I know? Was I focusing on what I wanted to do, or was my attention jumping between different things and tasks?”

When we are more aware (or present) of what we are focusing on, we can try to redirect our focus to what is important. It can help to keep a list of things that are distracting you.

TIP 7:

Rest smart: Mindfulness and meditation: A way of thinking that brings us to the present moment. The changes brought about by mindfulness are directly observable and measurable even in magnetic resonance imaging (the centers for positive emotions light up). They can be developed regularly.

TIP 8:

Work with your personal mindset for change: Many of us tend to seek out conditions that are familiar and predictable to us. If those are taken away, say with the New Normal, and the conditions of our daily lives change so that our lives suddenly become unfamiliar and unpredictable, we tend to react in a way that removes the change.

How can we do this even better in the New Normal and its new challenges?

• Mindset 1: the only certainty is change. And we must adapt to it.
• We cannot predict where the future will take us. We can all actively work to adapt – and in change management, openness to inevitable change and adaptation is a fundamental asset of those who live their lives successfully and contentedly.
• In the case of Covid, this means counting on the possibility that a new Covid emergency could occur again at any time.
• Mindset 2: Change moves us forward in life.
• Without change, we would not be where we are now – that is good to realize.
• Mindset 3: Change can also have a positive effect.
• You may have already faced a situation where you had to go through an unpleasant change and in retrospect you asked yourself “why didn’t I do this sooner?”
• Covid has forced us to think a lot about ourselves and about new approaches to work.

TIP 9: 

Keep life simple: Minimalism is the new normal. Don’t spend too much time overanalyzing situations. Learn quickly from your mistakes. Thinking about a situation for too long without focusing on solutions drains energy rather than providing it.

Focus on the solutions and options available. Simplify wherever and whenever possible.

TIP 10:

Use the principles of positive psychology. The basic premise is that each of us has control over whether we experience positive or negative feelings. Research has shown that we can actively change the state of how we feel. To make this easier, we can start to look forward to change instead of fearing it.

„WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WEREN’T AFRAID?“

Let’s end our tips and tricks with this sentence, which can guide you further in the mentoring process, not only in creating the best Work-Life Balance system.