Top Tips for a Healthy work-Life Balance for Engineers

Engineering is a very demanding profession, so you may find it difficult to strike a healthy balance between your work life and your home life. If you’re struggling with burnout, low job satisfaction or finding it difficult to define your work-life balance, then these helpful tips will provide you with some helpful tips to help you regain a life outside of work. 

Reasons why you may be struggling to find a healthy balance

Before we start to look at what we can do to improve your work-life balance, we think that its important to discuss some of the factors that contribute towards an unhealthy work-life balance, as some people may not even know they are experiencing burnout.

According to the Mental Health Foundation,

“More than 40% of employees are neglecting other aspects of their life because of work, which may increase their vulnerability to mental health problems.''

and low job satisfaction. 

This, of course, could be due to many factors, including working long hours, gaining more responsibilities, increasing responsibilities or pressures in your home life and an imbalance between your pay and your expenses. If you feel as though these are affecting your life, then we have some simple solutions that can help you. 

Achieving a balance at work 

Work may be a huge contributor to your burnout, so how do you maintain a work-life balance? This first point may seem like an obvious point, but it’s very important to ensure that you feel satisfied in your role. Setting small goals each day will make long-term projects feel less daunting and more manageable. This will also help you to regain a sense of control and will help you to feel accomplished every day. 

If you feel as though you’re spending too much time at work, then you are well within your rights to ask for flexible hours or a work-from-home option. As a result of COVID-19, many engineers are already telecommuting and asking their employers for greater flexibility to work from home, in order to free up some of their time by eliminating their commute.

Our third at work tip is another simple one, but is often one that seems impossible to carry out. Most busy people can’t fathom the idea of taking a break, especially when they’re invested in their task.

However, these breaks will not make you any less productive, instead, they can actually help you to relax your mind and will encourage you to focus more on your next project or task. 

Strategies for Home

In addition to putting things in place while you are at work, there are also some strategies that you can put in place while you’re at home.  Tip 1 is to make sure that you are staying active while at home. We all see posts about how our mental health can be affected by our physical health. It is so important to perhaps get up half an hour early and go for a jog, walk the dog or do a quick hit session before you sit down at your desk for the day.

Balancing your work and personal life can be extremely difficult, especially if you feel as though you want to see a project through. However, it is crucial that you are looking after your mental health in order to avoid burning out at work. 

If you need any further advice for the interview or job application process, then we recommend that you check out some of our other posts on our job tips page.

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