10 Tips to Help You Have a Better Work-Life Balance

For today's time-poor executive, a healthy work life balance is the ultimate lifestyle dream – a richly fulfilling job and a complete domestic lie, combined in perfect harmony. Technology is often seen as a threat to this goal but, used properly, it can help you to live and work smarter. Here are 10 ways to get the balance right.

BE SMART ABOUT EMAIL
Increasingly, US organizations are adopting No Email Fridays, when no one in the company is allowed to send internal emails. Instead they pick up the phone, or even walk round to their office to talk. Manager find that in actually meeting and talking to each face-to-face, problems are solved and morale goes up..

USE DOWNTOWN TO SPEED UP
Maria is a project manager and mother of one. "I have to pick my son up several times a week. So I schedule conference calls on those days from 4pm on, and use the mobile phone and my car as my office when I am driving." Maria uses Bluetooth headset and a digital recorder for notes.

TAKE YOUR FAMILY WITH YOU
As an international sales director Edson feels he spends more time on planes and he dopes at home. But his children travel everywhere with him. "I have a camera phone and have dozens of picture everywhere I go. I change the wallpaper everyday." He also sends his partner at least 10 pictures a day. "Sometimes it is something amused me, or just what I am looking at or where I am. And she sends her back. It is a way of sharing days."

DON'T BE AFRAID TO PULL THE PLUG
Use technology to help you and your team. Block off fixed regular periods for interrupted work when the phones will be off, and use a helpful voice mail to re-direct callers. "I'm sorry but I will not be taking calls between 9am to 10pm." Please leave a message and I will call you back after 10.30am.

HOLD MEETINGS STAND UP
Big formal meetings are responsible for wasted work time than anything else. The editor of French newspaper Le Monde holds all meetings standing up. Less time in meeting means more time actually working – and less time working later to make up for all the lost productivity of pointless meeting!

DON'T BE A PERFECTIONIST
Business success is about striving for excellence, not perfection. Accept, and get your team to accept, that not everything has to be done in a single day and that sometimes "good enough" is, well, good enough.

THERE'S ALWYS TOMMOROW
Bestselling psychologist Richard Carlson of Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, advices people to learn to live with the fact that the in-tray will never be empty at the end of the day. "Realise that you are not Superman or Superwoman," he says. "It is just humanly possible to accomplish everything in one day." In every working day there are always things that don't go according to plan, which mean time spent sorting out unforeseen problems. "My rule of thumb is: assume that only half of the things you plan on doing today will actually get done," says personnel manager Leah.

KNOW WHERE THE OFF SWITCH IS - AND USE IT
"Carve out hours for yourself and your relationship," says Steven Hobfoll, professor of psychology. "Stop checking email and mobile phone so often." Few people are so important that they need their phones on at all times." Guard this personal time fiercely and treat it with respect: treat your partner's birthday or your child's sport day as seriously as you would a big sales meeting.

MAKE TIME FOR YOU
Identify what matters to you and dedicate time to it. Hugo is a sales manager for a US carmaker. "I play drums for a rock band. I block out a fixed time every week after work and will never work late that day. If I need to I can make up on other days."

SMASH THE "WORKING LATE" CULTURE
In Germany working late is seen as a sign of weakness, not strength: To a German director, a manager who works late into the evening is one who can't organize his day properly. British telecom giant BT uses a management consultancy to inspect employees' timesheets and thus spot people who are spending too long at work. So, reward team members who get things done both on time and in time.
Sab Nyer...