The elusive work-life balance: how automation plays a role.
Work-life balance: is it an idea that’s real, with tangible measurements and outcomes, or is it an overused phrase, tossed around only to make us feel even more frustrated with unread emails and packed schedules?
Whether or not the phrase is one that makes you perk up or back away, the idea inherent behind it is important. We’re busier than ever, and evaluating how we create separation between the work that keeps us busy in our 9–5 (or whatever the flexible hour alternative is) and the home life we look to cultivate is an ongoing and crucial process for sanity, sustainability and peace of mind.
Mention the phrase ‘automation’ to people who don’t like change, and they’ll get fearful at the idea of robots taking their jobs. For those who’ve harnessed some of its abilities, and who are looking to improve the workplaces of the present and the future, however, automation is one of the tools intrinsic to building sustainable balances between our work and our personal lives, even as the lines between the two become even blurrier.
There’s some simple automation applications that can play a role in contributing to this idea of work-life balance, whatever form that may take for you.
Organisational structures
One of the issues that can create a lack of separation between the hours at work and the hours at home is lingering concern over projects in motion. That sinking feeling as you pull away from the office that you may have forgotten to pass on that crucial email or hit an internal deadline? That can be a workflow problem. If you’re spending your day battling a growing inbox, competing priorities and without protected space for deep work, it becomes even harder to leave work at work and go home with a clear head. Automation can reduce these tensions through systems that are designed to ‘catch it all’. With a robust CRM and automated workflows in place, the risk of missing an email or faltering with a deadline is greatly reduced. Tasks are assigned and handled clearly, there’s a digital trail of work progress, and issues that may become emergent can be identified ahead of time. If your workflows lack organisational structure, so will your headspace.
Removal of ‘clutter’ work
If you work a standard eight hour day, how much of that time is spent on tasks that didn’t actually need to be completed by you? Are you spending time at work on items that could be delegated or reassigned to an automated process?
Responding to incoming customer enquiries from scratch. Scheduling client meetings and internal status conversations. Generating sales and marketing reports. Dealing with customer service. If the only tool you have across these fronts is yourself and your keyboard, you’re giving your valuable time to items that can easily be handled by an automated system. When your day is cluttered, your productivity is deeply impacted, and that sense of ‘unfinished business’ can remain with you long after you’ve made it home that day.
While the idea of finding work-life balance is never going to be a one-size-fits-all process, automation equips you with the freedom to work on what matters and reduce the size of the rest.
If you’re constantly leaving work stressed, uncertain, or with a foreboding sense that you’re going to return to a disorganised mess the next morning, it’s time to carry out an automation evaluation — and protect your time to, well, do nothing at all.
