Boost your work-life balance this autumn

Moira Dunne of BeProductive.ie shares practical tips to reset, refocus, and make the most of the months ahead.

As the year gathers pace, it’s easy to feel stretched between competing demands at work and home. To stay focused, motivated, and balanced, it helps to take a step back and reset. Resetting isn’t about starting over- it’s about refreshing your mindset, clarifying your priorities, and creating routines that work for you. The following tips will guide you through practical ways to reset your mind, your goals, and your routine, so you can finish the year strong and with greater balance.

Tip 1: Reset your Mind

First take a moment to think about your mood right now. How are your energy levels? Do you feel motivated for the busy months ahead or do you feel tired?

Examine what can help you to reset your mind. What would energise you? Maybe it’s a plan, a new routine or a new challenge. Would you like to improve your work-life balance? Perhaps you want to focus on your health more or find more time for family. Different things will help different people. Here are some reset ideas, to help you find what works for you:

• Sign up for a new course
• Contact family and friends
• Download an app to stay on track
• Buy a new Weekly Planner
• Start exercising with a friend
• Rearrange your workspace
• Reduce screen time and read more books

These ideas largely relate to personal life, but it important to do a similar exercise for your work life. Identify how to boost your motivation levels for the months ahead.

Tip 2: Reset your Goals

A wish list is a great idea, but it can be hard to do everything. And starting too many new things at once, can be overwhelming. So, it is important to prioritise and be realistic about your time.

The last four months of the year are always busy in workplaces, as year-end deadlines approach and plans are made for following year. Lots of people may be looking for your time. To prioritise, project forward to the end of the year and consider what will make this year a success? What are the most important things to get done in the next four months? What doesn’t need to get done?

Prioritise the most valuable things, so you can achieve balance in your life and deliver in your role. Working with colleagues in work, use a model to prioritise the workload using a model such as the “Must do, Should do, Could do” approach.

Tip 3: Reset your Routine

With your mind and your priorities reset, you are now ready to optimise your routine. Reflect on the following:

1. What is currently working well?
2. What needs to improve?
3. Where does your time get lost or wasted?
4. What can you adjust?
5. Do you need to speak to someone else to make those adjustments, like your manager or a family member?

I am a big advocate of regular planning to help be productive. I recommend both a weekly and daily planning routine so you can stay in control of your time and adjust to inevitable changes. Here are some Top Planning Tips:

• At the end of each week, spend 10 minutes looking ahead at what is coming down the track and plan your time proactively
• Identify three priority (Must Do) things to work on each week.
• Block time in your diary to get these key things done. Label the Time Blocks and protect this time as other requests arise.
• Don’t automatically say yes, especially to lower priority requests. ‘Saying No’ is one of the hardest skills but it can be the right decision. If you explain why and suggest an alternative time or solution, you can switch the narrative in your head - you are not saying no, you are actually saying yes but on your own terms.
• Develop a good morning routine to boost your motivation and productivity. This gives your brain one less thing to think about and makes it easier to get started.
• At the end of each day, review progress, assess new things that arose and make a quick plan for the next day. This helps you switch off after work and manage stress levels.

Develop Your Productivity Skills

Spend some time thinking about what will work for you and then take action. You can access lots of articles on the Beproductive.iewebsite on a range of productivity topics such as tips for hybrid working, managing email, reducing stress and saying no.

By Productivity & Wellbeing Consultant Moira Dunne, founder and director of beproductive.ie. To book a ‘September Reset’ or ‘Q4 Planning’ Talk or Team Workshop contact Moira here.