Make your Work-Life Balance Better: Devler's credo

People are increasingly working from home as the globe gets more digitally connected. When working from home, it's critical to have strategies in place to be organized and productive despite the problems that may emerge. While working from home, having an organizational system can help you stay focused and motivated. So what are the best practices and strategies for a work-life balance for developers? Let's read it below. 

Before we start, how about explaining deeply what a Work-Life Balance means? Here are some thesis statements: 

• Increasing your influence at work and in the world (but without sacrificing your personal health or happiness for it),
• Making a positive impact in your children's lives,
• Being in the present moment (with actual space to think),
• Without guilt, shame, or apology, prioritize what matters to you (including self-care),
• Having clear, enforceable boundaries and letting go of the desire to do/have it all.

Work-life balance is important for a variety of reasons:

• Employees who do not have a healthy work-life balance burn out faster than those who do, while those who do have a healthy balance are more motivated and productive at work.
• It is critical for one's health and well-being to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
• Working more than 40 hours a week can be stressful, but balancing family life with rigorous job duties can be even more so.
• You will have more time to spend with your family if you maintain a healthy work-life balance. You'll also have more time to pursue hobbies you enjoy, such as painting or hiking.

Research shows that balancing your job and personal time helps to live your best life. Moreover, according to the same research companies that provide work-life balance programs for their employees claim increased productivity by 85% Employee turnover is reduced by 25% in companies that provide a healthy work-life balance. Furthermore, companies that have effective work-life balance programs spend 50% less on healthcare.

So the important topic here is: how can you achieve such a perfect Work-Life Balance - finished work and a happy life? 

Let's look at Top 6 Tips: 

1. Create a work schedule 

You must prioritize your time for both your personal and professional lives. You must categorize your jobs according to their priority. Don't just do whatever comes to mind first. Consider what needs to be done right now, what can be done tomorrow, next week or next month. Furthermore, in our modern technological environment, we have a vast array of instruments for time management.
 

2. Establish clear boundaries

Reaching out to coworkers has become as simple as chat, email, or making a phone call since the epidemic broke out and remote work got more prevalent.

Almost everyone now owns a smartphone, which greatly simplifies communication. However, just because you can be reached readily does not imply you have to work outside normal business hours.

If possible, leave your laptop at work and only check emails during business hours. Work calls can also be postponed until you return to the working hours.
 

3. Learn to refuse jobs that you can't handle.

It can be difficult to say no to certain job prospects, but doing so when you are overworked becomes critical.

It's tempting to turn down the chance to work with a large client on a fantastic project, but if you're unable to take on any additional work, the best option is to postpone or reject it.

However, you can always delegate certain responsibilities to other coworkers to free up some time. Accepting every responsibility that comes your way will leave you exhausted and with no time for yourself.

4. Take lots of pauses

Programmer burnout is common in the IT business, and it's bad for a programmer's physical and emotional health. Programming takes a lot of brainpower, and if you have to write code for 12 hours or more every day, your mind will ultimately tire out and you will lose interest in coding.

As with any physical exercise, you must constantly take breaks in between. The human body isn't built to stare at a computer screen for long periods.

5. Don't be a stickler for perfection.

It's admirable to take your job seriously and strive for excellence, but trying to be too flawless can backfire spectacularly.

Doing more work than is expected of you would divert time away from more personal pursuits. As a result, you must assess how much labor is sufficient and avoid devoting too much time to a single project, because what is visible to you may not be apparent to others.

It is critical to maintain your general quality of life in order to advance in your job as a software engineer.

6. Leave home

You will benefit from fresh air and natural light. Step outside for at least a few minutes before, during, and after work, if possible.

You can also go to cafes, libraries, and co-working spaces to break up the monotony of being at home if your personal circumstances and local conditions allow it. That's excellent, but the most essential thing is to go out of your house, get some fresh air, and move about.

To get away from your lone workstation, you don't have to go to congested public locations. Take a stroll.

Best Time Management Tools

• RescueTime - It aids in productivity tracking by calculating how much time you spend on distracting apps and webpages. They include a lot of features that can help people and teams focus better and get more done in less time.
• Toggl - Toggl features many app connectors, allowing you to measure your time in your favorite apps while spending less time traveling between sites.

Best Note-Taking Apps

• EverNote - You can use notebooks and tags to organize your notes and search them quickly using a system that works for you. You can easily focus on what matters most when you have a single, structured location for everything you need to remember. 
• Atom - Atom is a cross-platform editor, which means it can be used on Windows, iOS, and even Linux. Multiple users can edit the same files using different operating systems using collaborative editing.

Best Focus Apps

• FocusBooster - The Pomodoro Technique is used by FocusBooster to help you overcome interruptions and complete projects with a sense of accomplishment. It's a good option for people who have trouble with procrastination. Work sessions are automatically logged so you can see how far you've come and how productive you've been.
• HeadSpace - Headspace stands out from its competitors because it offers so many different types of meditation for different scenarios, whether you're seeking meditation for business, stress, anxiety, focus, or sleep. Its goal is to help you cultivate mindfulness through daily meditations that take only a few minutes. 

Best Time Zone Management Tool

• TimeZone - Many remote businesses have personnel that operate in many time zones. You can keep track of all your team members' local time using timezone.io, so you can simply organize meetings and calls without having to look up the time in each city. 

Best Project Management Tools

• Trello - Trello is a straightforward project management app. Trello, which is known for its iconic cards, functions similarly to supercharged sticky notes.

And, like sticky notes, they're fun to look at and useful in a hurry, but if you need something more thorough, you should seek elsewhere.

• ClickUp - The highest-rated project management tool is ClickUp. It has some unique features that you won't find in any other project management software.
• Asana - Asana is a dynamic project management tool employed by enterprises all over the world, despite its laid-back, yoga-inspired name. 

Wrapping up, achieving a suitable work-life balance as a software engineer can be quite difficult. Nonetheless, this is a goal worth pursuing. Job burnout can occur quickly if you work much too many hours for an extended period of time. There are several grounds to believe that this specific situation of feeling physically and emotionally unable to continue is especially widespread among software developers. Furthermore, employees who maintain a healthy work-life balance benefit their employers. Workers that do not work overtime are considerably more effective, according to research. And a coder can only code for a certain number of hours per day before exceeding their limit. 

Find a Work-Life Balance with Devler.io! 

Here we truly understand how important it is to differentiate between work and personal life. As a developer, your schedule is up to you - it can be either a Full-Time or Part-Time workload. Moreover, with Devler you have freedom of choice. You always have the last word, so you can choose not only a project that matches your technology stack and experience, but also your availability. Devler.io - a platform for finding Work-Life balance. 

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