Managing For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Chapter 22. Ten Tips for Maintaining Your Work-Life Balance

In This Chapter

• Creating a flexible workplace

• Managing your stress

• Changing what you can change

• Accepting what you can't change

• Having fun

In all the hustle and bustle of a typical day at the office — another rush order to get out, meetings stacked back to back, the computer network down, the latest crisis du jour — you can easily get caught up in work. There's nothing wrong with getting caught up in your work, but when work begins to intrude on your personal life a bit too far and a bit too often, you have a problem.

No matter how high up in the organization you are, or how important your job is, or how much you're getting paid, you have to take care of yourself first. When you take care of yourself, you stay in top form and you're a more valuable asset to your organization, your customers, and your employees. You also have a much better chance of surviving to retirement and enjoying the fruits of all your hard work. Doesn't that sound nice?

Life is all about balance, both at work and in your personal life. This chapter gives you ten easy ways to keep your work and life in balance, which makes you a better manager in the long run.

Make the Case for a More Flexible Workplace

You know that you and your employees need ways to move the balance of your lives more to the personal side and less to the work side. How exactly are you going to convince the powers-that-be that, first, this idea is good to implement and, second, company policies ...