No matter how much you love your job, you should not be working every waking moment. Eventually, you will burn out, and you will lose all that passion you once had. You must strike a balance between work and personal time, to stay happy and productive. However, that is something many of us struggle with today, especially while working from home. If you need help to achieve a better work-life balance, these apps will help you tremendously.
TimeTune (Android) / ATracker (iOS)
Before you dive into problem-solving, you must first recognise the issue. Many of us do not even know that we have a problem with our work-life balance, as it seems habitual to work even off-the-clock. You need to know where you stand with the work/life split. How often are you in the office? Even when you are not physically there, how much of your time is spent finishing projects from home? TimeTune and ATracker help analyse how you split your time by following your routine. With this information, you can then appropriately measure the ideal work/life split. Trust me; you are doing way more than you realise!
Space
Space is an app that allows you to understand how inseparable you are from your phone. With one of the highest network penetration rates in the world, it is incredibly easy for Singaporeans to work from anywhere. This might be great if you need to put out a fire at work, but it also tempts you into reacting to minor work issues that could wait till you are back on the clock. By monitoring which apps you use, Space alerts you if you are spending too much time on any of them. It grants you the transparency into your activities so that you can be accountable and track specific promises that you might have made to better your work-life balance. If you need more stringent control, you can even block your access to certain apps at pre-set times to keep you reined in.
Pacifica
How would you describe your typical working day? Do the words stress, anxiety and worry come to mind? If so, Pacifica will help ease your mind so you can be in the best possible mental state. By making use of its mood monitoring, meditation and relaxation modules, you can better manage your stress. Pacifica also comes with journaling and wellness tracking capabilities, which gives you meaningful activities to fill those empty blocks in between your work meetings.
Cozi
One of the most significant barriers to staying focused at work is all the other moving parts outside of the office. How often have you hesitated about tomorrow’s plans because you can’t remember what other commitments you already have? It doesn’t help that with video conferencing, Google calendars and our trusty notebook, all our appointments are scattered around the place. With Cozi, you can consolidate all this information in one place. This includes things like your to-do lists, journal, or even that recipe you were saving for family dinner tomorrow. Everyone in your family can have access to it, so you don’t have to jump on hectic calls to make plans anymore.
Weekly Planner (Android) / Week Plan (iOS)
Weekly Planner and Week Plan pushes you to plan out your week. This way, you make time for what matters. Far too often, you have an excellent plan for the week, but fail to hit any of the to-dos once work gets going. It is a fatal flaw of many modern workers not to dedicate time for personal tasks, attempting to fit leisure activities in whenever time permits. As we all know, work never lets up. There is always more work to do, so until you learn how to pace yourself, you will never find time for that gym session, or to read that book. These apps are simple but effective for scheduling routine tasks like exercise or self-improvement, reminding you to keep those promises to yourself.
We are always at risk of losing ourselves to our career. The best way to last the distance is to take care of yourself mentally. These apps will make that endeavour much more manageable.
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