Maintaining your career/academic and personal life can get pretty hectic sometimes. Most adults can probably admit to having their school or work life intrude on their relationships or families and vice versa. Being able to strike a balance between your professional and personal lives can help you become more productive and less likely to burnout. This balancing act takes careful planning and preparation, but it is possible.

Method1 Managing Your Time

1.Try to separate work and play. In the age of online learning and telecommuting, you can easily spend your whole day at home and get everything done. Attending school or working from afar may even add more flexibility to your home life. However, a downside is that work or school can creep over into home and/or family activities. It can be hard to back away when work is always within reach. Plus, without a clear separation between your home and office, it may be hard to transition from your work life to your personal life.[1] To counteract this issue, you need a distinctive work zone.
If you telecommute or go to school online, you might find it helpful to get work done at a local library, coffee shop, or cohab community for students or telecommuters. When your work is done, you can physically leave the environment, which might help you to transition to your personal life.
If you have to work inside of your home, then do your best to keep a separate space for working. This might be a home office, or just a specific spot at your kitchen table. Don’t stress if you occasionally work someplace else.
If you work in a traditional office, make sure that you find a relaxing way to transition from work to personal life when you finish up for the day. For example, you might use your commute home to listen to music or a book on tape, or stop by the gym for a quick workout, or call up a friend and chat for a bit.

2.Set priorities. To successfully walk the tightrope between professional and personal you need to understand where your priorities lie. Therefore, in a pinch or when faced with an urgent circumstance, you aren't conflicted about what's most important to you.

• Create a list of the most significant aspects of your life. Of course, you might include items like family, romantic relationships, work, and spirituality. You might also include volunteering, staying active, maintaining a social circle or other passions.
• Review your list and rank these items starting with #1 as the most important, #2 as the second most important and so on. Your rankings will show where your priorities lie. That way you can be sure to make an effort to incorporate these top priorities into your daily and weekly schedules.

3.Create a schedule and try to stick to it. If your week goes by in a blur and you are unable to recount which tasks you do on which days, it can be helpful to spend a week logging everything you do.[3][4] After this week has passed, you will have a better idea of how to factor in different work/school assignments and personal activities or errands into your schedule.
It can be most helpful to develop a weekly schedule involving all the constants like work, classes, church, and social activities with other one-time events. Then, each night before map out a daily to-do list of the individual tasks you need to get done based on your priorities.
For your daily schedule, highlight the three most important tasks you need to get done each day (aside from actually going to work or going to school) These might be professional items like working on a presentation or personal items like going to the dentist or your daughter's ballet recital.
You may even create two separate lists if this one is to constricting - one with three major tasks for work/school and one with three major tasks for home. As long as you have accomplished these 3 to 6 tasks each day, you will have been productive.

4.Manage procrastination. Procrastination is a major obstacle that could be standing in your way of striking a good balance. You may see your professional and personal lives seeping into one another because you often wait until the very last minute to get things done. This causes you to end up working late, or being distracted at work by personal tasks.
One method to overcome procrastination is to write out your reasons for enrolling in school or being in a particular career path and so on. For example, if you want to help people, you can complete your assignments with the intrinsic purpose that they are helping you reach that goal. Keep this list in your work space for when you are feeling unmotivated.
Another way to beat procrastination for getting things done is to break larger projects down. Doing so makes the overall project seem less daunting and increases motivation as you complete the smaller parts.

5.Eliminate distractions. You'd be surprised how much distractions are impeding on your time and productivity. Research estimates claim most people spend about 20 minutes of every hour handling unplanned distractions. As a result, about two whole hours of each day is spent trying to refocus after being distracted.[8] If you can minimize the distractions in your professional life, you can prevent it from constantly interfering with your personal life. Try these tips to eliminate distractions:[9]

• Focus on important rather than urgent tasks - urgent tasks are reactive-based, important tasks are proactive-based
• Turn off the notifications on your phone or computer
• Create a clean and clutter-free work space
• Put your phone away
• Close any programs you're not actively using
• Get water, snacks or visit the bathroom during routine breaks to minimize physical interruptions

6.Be inventive. Regardless of how hard you try, there will be some times when one or the other becomes more demanding in your life. Learn to be creative and think up possible ways you can meet the urgent priority while still attending to the other.
For example, maybe you are working overtime every week and never get to go out with your significant other. You can make the special effort of lighting candles during dinner or choosing a film to watch on the couch one evening. This won't take up too much of your time and it may prevent your partner from feeling neglected.
You may be able to pass off large projects or split the time with another coworker to ease your workload and make more time for relationships and family. If you can't afford to work less, plan to spend your lunch hour in the park with your family or bring your family to the work picnic.

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