Work Life Balance

I am recently back from holiday, and it reminds me why downtime is critical.

We hear the term "work/life balance", and the key to this is having a clear break between work and non-work time.

As a company, we strictly encourage our team members to detach from work when they aren't working.   This ranges from silencing our TEAMS work chat application during non work hours and doing the same with other applications - such as Outlook etc - and not to answer their phones out of work time.  When on holiday, we are careful to ensure that there is a handover to other team members so they can cover any work whilst away.  

We don't want our team members to be worrying about the work that might be waiting when they return.

I have to say that this is sometimes a "do as I say, not as I do thing".  

As a business owner, when I'm away on holiday, I tend to have a period of time each day - normally in the early mornings, where I "catch up" with work.  

This process is simply a quick scan of emails, chat, social media with the aim of forwarding or creating activity to ensure that they aren't there to deal with when I get back.    This means that I don't come back to a mountain of emails and messages to deal with when I come back!

I also find that when I get back from holiday, I'm refreshed, with new ideas and revitalised for the next work period.

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