Work-life integration or work-life balance?
You probably have heard of the term work-life balance been thrown around quite a few times. Work-life balance means that both your work and life are kept separately and both thrive independently. Work-life integration is different in the sense that it doesn’t try to separate your work from your personal life. The idea is that by bringing your work and life closer together, you will be able to be more effective in both of them. People practicing work-life integration don’t focus on whether its work time or not, instead they look at when is the best time for them to do either work or their other pursuits.
For example, let’s say that you are practicing work-life integration. You work at a company as a marketing assistant. As part of your job, you are tasked with creating a new advertising campaign designed to increase product sales. Your creative juices aren’t flowing one day and you cant seem to think of any good approaches to the campaign. Instead of being unproductive with the time you are at work, you decide to take that time and focus on your personal life. This could be spending time with your family, working on your hobbies, and other personal pursuits. Later on in the day or at night when you feel a bit more productive and able to think creatively you continue working on the project. This resulted in you being more effective at both work and your personal life rather than wasting time being unproductive at work.
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How to integrate your work and life together
Having work-life integration is not as simple as mixing both your work and life together. It requires careful planning and understanding exactly what it is you are trying to get out of doing it.
The first step is to understand what work-life integration means to you and the benefits it is going to give. For example, will having work-life integration reduce your stress levels? Will it give you more time to work on your projects or create a better relationship with your family? Once you understand what you are trying to get out of it, talk to your employer about working more flexibly. When talking to your employer, have planned suggestions about how you will still complete the work and the way your day is going to be structured in terms of what times you are in the office, or working remotely.
You should know that getting the right integration takes time, effort, and experimentation. Chances are when first starting off, you are not going to get it all right and that’s okay. Be willing to experiment and shift things around to find out what works best for you.
Another big thing that comes with the territory is feeling a little guilty for taking some time off during the normal work time. You shouldn’t feel guilty over integrating both your work and life together. It shouldn’t be seen as a luxury, but instead a way that you can be even more successful in both. The goal is to be even more productive in both facets of your life.
For more tips on how to achieve work-life integration and whether it is right for you, click here.
Conclusion
Work-life integration is a great way for people to be productive in both their work and personal lives. It involves getting rid of the mindset that your work and life have to be separated. It adopts the view that both parts of your life need to be integrated together. When choosing to integrate your work with your life it is important to have a clear goal with what you are trying to achieve. You have to be patient and willing to experiment with the integration, and let go of the guilt associated with it.
