6 realistic habits for a HEALTHY work life balance 🌱

🎶 In this video, I wanted to talk about how to maintain a sustainable and healthy work-life balance. As much as I'm all about being productive and getting things done, they're not the only things that matter. I believe that your work and productivity will only be as good as your mental health or your energy levels. I am all about balance. Balance between self-discipline and self-compassion. Balance between work and life. I'm not going to be working 24-7. I am human. I'm not a productivity machine. A lot of our perceived self-worth and value can be defined by our levels of productivity or performance. Just because that's kind of how we were taught, but that's not why we're here. I personally used to experience burnouts pretty easily. I would literally have mental breakdowns on a monthly basis just because I was so tired and burnt out. But I'm not really like that anymore. All of this is easier said than done, so in this video, I wanted to share with you how I learned to establish and maintain a healthy work-life balance. And of course, a disclaimer, I have not perfected it 100% myself either. I'm still in the learning process. These are just what helped me, and I'm sharing with you in hopes that it might help you. Alright, what is the first tip? Routines. Putting yourself on a schedule and giving your life some kind of structure. This is all about creating an effective system for you to get things done. For example, my morning routine. Making coffee, doing my morning stretch, checking my to-do list. These habits tell my body and mind that I am getting ready to do some work. And the more important reason why we do this is that we save our mental energy that we would have otherwise expended on making these little decisions that don't really matter. Like, do I want to get up? Do I want to make my bed? Do I want to do this morning stretch? And instead, we use that energy to do the things that actually matter, like your work. And we always talk about morning routines, but I think night routines are just as important. I make it a habit to create and organize my to-do list every night before I go to sleep. When I just wake up, I'm like, oh, I'm excited to do this work. I'm excited to work on this today. Tip number two is getting into 100% focus. No distractions whatsoever. It's not about the quantity of time you put in, but the quality of the time you put in. And I'm kind of talking about getting in the flow state. So how I do this is I dedicate each of my days to do one thing. So the two biggest external commitments I have in my life right now are school and YouTube. I dedicate each of my days as either like a YouTube day or a school day. I think it's a lot more efficient when you are focusing on one area of your life and you are able to get into that flow state. I can actually work on both YouTube and school in one day, but only if it's light work. If it's deep work, something that requires a lot of focus and dedication and just me getting into that flow state, I cannot do two things at once. For example, I can manage taking simple notes and making simple raw cuts in one day because that's light work for me. But what I cannot do is study intensively for an exam and be making these more cinematic, artistic edits for my videos in one day. And even if I do, I know that I will be doing both of them with 50 to 70% focus and quality. And when we add the life aspect to the equation, I actually like to have full days off. So in order to allocate one or two completely free days off in my week, I have to really grind it out for the other days of the week. I'm like, okay, today is school, tomorrow is YouTube, the next day I'm completely off. So identify what is light work and deep work, and then allocate those tasks and commitments based on your focus level, capabilities, and work style. So in other words, instead of creating a work-life balance within the day, I like to create a work-life balance within the week because I just don't really like multitasking within a day. Number three is creating a habit of writing everything down. The purpose of writing everything down is so that one, your mind is a lot freer and you're able to focus, stay in the moment. And two, also just so that you know all the different aspects of your life that are relevant to you. I literally write everything down on my Apple Notes. Like if I just have a stupid idea, if I have a good idea, whatever it is, I write it down. Because your mind is so busy with all these new buzzing ideas, you have to free your mind. This also goes to say for creating separate lists for different aspects in your life. So I have categorized everything into YouTube, school, and life. The reason for doing this is so by doing this, I can kind of see, okay, this week I have a lot more tasks for YouTube, so I will allocate three days for this, whereas I will only allocate two days for school. Number four is creating deadlines and micro-goals. I create deadlines for myself all the time. Like no one's gonna tell you what to do anymore. You have to be your own motivator, you have to be your own cheerleader, manager. I'm in the habit of getting things done before some kind of life event. So for example, my travel plans obviously revolve around my school schedule. And then my social calendar also revolves around my YouTube deadlines. You have to differentiate between what is fixed and what is flexible. And the next point is about micro-goals. I would not like to work past a certain time. I like to start my work in the day and then I would like to finish before the latest like 12 a.m. Even if you want to continue to do work, stop. Be strict with yourself in this aspect and say stop. It's not sustainable. It is going to take a toll on you over time. Life is a marathon. You might be productive, you might be able to get things done in the short term. But if you look at the long term, you're going to burn yourself out. You need to sleep, you need to rest. Get your mind off of work. Okay, number five, obviously self-love. I always emphasize the importance of self-love and I will do it again. If you recognize your own value, your strengths, your worth outside of just your level of productivity and performance, you will be surprised to see how less stressed you are about how much you are getting done. Because a common belief is that in your 20s, you should be grinding. You should be putting in all the work to build your career, make money. So I think we are kind of used to believing that we need to get things done. We need to perform to this level, outdo ourselves every single time. But no, like that's unhealthy. I just think the most important thing is that you are enjoying what you are doing right now. So let's do an analogy. When you are on the train of life, on the way to achieve something, towards a goal, I don't think you should be racing there. I think you should slow down and take some time to look out the window, take a bathroom break, to go get a snack, to get a glass of wine from the train cafe. Because life isn't all about just getting to the destination. It's about the process. It's about how are you getting there. Learn to enjoy the process. But it's also important for you to try to find joy in the less exciting things that you do. Last tip number six, cut things out. I believe that your time, emotions, energy, money, resources, they're not limitless. Like you literally should not be doing everything. Like you can do everything, but you can't be amazing at everything. So cut out the commitments, the responsibilities that do not really give value in your life to make room for the things that really matter. I just feel like you can't do it all. I don't think like most of us are built like that. So stop committing yourself to all these extracurriculars, all these new internships, all these new opportunities that you cannot handle all at once. More is not better. And I think a good little litmus test that you can do for yourself is that if your reaction or your response to say X is not a hell yes, then I don't think you should do it. If someone asks me, how do you feel about YouTube? My response is yes, like hell yes. But if my response was anything less than that, I should not be doing it or I would not be doing it. So those are my six tips. And now I have to go to a workout class. Great workout. I feel so ready. I've been using Lingoda classes. I've been using Lingoda. So if you are interested, you can use this link. Great. We're done. Let's edit now. And the salmon and avocado. And the lamb chop. Buon giorno. Mmm.