4 Effective Ways to Use Technology to Improve Work-life Balance Amid Covid-19 Pandemic

Do you want to know how to use technology to enhance work-life balance? Are you wondering how the use of technology can help you gain work and life balance? If that's a yes, you'll discover how to balance work and life using technology to your advantage.

Did you know? More than 80% of survey respondents are not satisfied with their work life. That is why many struggle at work, while others lack the motivation to keep going. It is so, particularly now that the coronavirus pandemic has forced many companies to embrace the work from home climate. 

But with the rise of technology, it doesn't have to be that way. You can leverage technology and make the most of work balance. It will help to make your organization agile. However, using technology can be a worthwhile or detrimental experience, depending on how you use it. 

So, if you can develop a work culture that supports your work-life balance, you will enjoy working from home and continue being motivated. It involves all parties, including employers, project managers, and other employees.

With the right technology, your company or organization can remain connected in-spite of Covid-19 lockdown and improve productivity.

What is Work-life Balance?

Work-life balance is the amount of prioritization you allocate between work, personal life, and family. It is a process that enables both employers and employees to create a balance between professional life and individual life. 

Your personal life, in this case, includes your family life. A viable work-life balance urges you to distribute your time according to your priorities. However, note that time for professional activities and personal matters cannot be equal.

So, if you cannot develop an achievable work-life balance, you may be spending more time on personal interests, which will negatively impact your job. 

How Does Technology Impact Work-life Balance?

Technology has a positive impact on work-life balance. It improves workplace efficiency. But since you're working from home due to the coronavirus effects, technology can help you create an in-office culture while you work from home and boost productivity.

Technology helps you work smarter by connecting with your team across borders and collaborating on projects. It will positively impact your work, increase output, and boost revenue. 

Nevertheless, in some cases, technology can hinder your quality of life and the work you put out if misused. 

Why is Work-life Balance so Essential?

Work-life is so essential because it contributes to a healthy working atmosphere. Also, not only does it increase productivity, but work-life balance helps to improve health. Primarily, if you establish a sound work-life balance, you will avoid workplace burnout and eradicate stress.

Indeed, research shows that the primary cause of stress is workload, standing at 46% over other causes of stress.

On the other hand, if you do control stress, it can result in severe health issues; with links to the following health problems:

• Anxiety
• Asthma
• Depression
• Fatigue
• Headaches
• Arrhythmias
• Insomnia
• Hypertension
• Diabetes
• Difficulty in breathing
• Suppression of the immune system

According to the American Institute of Stress, 65% of employees confirmed that workplace stress causes challenges, while 10% of survey participants say it results in significant health effects.

In consequence, developing a work-life balance is essential since it will foster a positive work environment and promote good health.

What Are the Benefits of Work-life Balance?

Are you wondering how sustained work-life balance can benefit you and your business? The advantages of an eco-friendly work-life balance are vital if you want your business to flourish. So, it is essential for all parties, involved─both employers, and employees. 

It helps to encourage a positive work-life balance within your organization. For this, we put together a few benefits to inspire you to strive to develop a durable work-life balance. 

Here are some of the benefits for employees. A stable work-life balance offers the following benefits:

• Enhanced health and well-being
• Increased productivity
• Improve time management
• Personal development
• Higher focus and engagement
• Reduced absenteeism
• Improves commitment and motivation
• Boosts employee loyalty

Because work-life balance is essential for every member, here are some benefits for employers:

• Build your brand reputation
• Encourage a positive work environment.
• Get the best from your team
• Improve employee retention
• Reduced non-attendance (also works for employees)
• Increased productivity
• Higher employee engagement
• Drive more sales and increase revenue

4 Effective Ways to Use Technology to Achieve Work-life Balance During Covid-19 Pandemic

While there are several ways to use technology to improve work-life balance, we have assembled the top five that are proven to work. Applying these pointers will help you gain work-life balance, increase your motivation, and productivity.

Let's get started:

1. Cut Down on Media Consumption

One of the most surprising undertakings that undermine your time and make you less productive is media consumption. You may not notice it, but your online activities may be the cause of your lack of productivity. It could be:

• Watching online news
• Checking and responding to social media posts
• Replying to emails and other operations

These actions are right, but how you interact with them can cause you more than you imagine. Study shows that on average, people spend 3-hours daily interacting on media channels.

According to the research, time spent on social media has been on the rise since 2012. Growing from 90 minutes daily to 153 minutes in 2019. You can see that it's not slowing down, especially now that coronavirus has forced the world into isolation.

Thus, technology can help you cut down on media consumption and balance your life. For me, I turn off social media and email notifications when working. I only check my messages three times a day. But technology can help you cut off distractions, such as social media.

Some of the best tools for this are:

• Cold Turkey: This application software lets you stay out of social media for a considerable amount of time so that you can concentrate on essential tasks.
• FocusMe: This tool blocks all distractions resulting from your devices. 
• Feedly: With Feedly, you can subscribe to your relevant websites and save time surfing the Internet for news and updates.
• Freedom: This software application helps you focus on the job by disabling networking on your computer for up to 8-hours straight.

These tools work similarly. They will restrain your unethical activities for parts of the day, letting you focus on what matters most.

2. Utilize Project Management Software 

With many employees working remotely from home due to the Covid-19 outbreak, it can be challenging to organize your work and communicate with teammates in different time zones. But with cloud technology, you can get the job done.

Project management applications work on all devices, including smartphones and laptop computers. The tools allow you to sync documents and files across devices for easy accessibility.

Apps in this category can aid you in the following tasks:

• Take notes from anywhere on the go
• Set up a daily, monthly, and yearly to-do-list
• Delegate tasks to team members
• Create an editorial calendar
• Brainstorm ideas for new projects
• Collaborate with your team and third parties

In consequence, employees can work seamlessly on different projects on all devices across platforms and improve productivity. You can manage all tasks in one place and sync them automatically over operating systems.

Here are some of the best productivity/project management tools for your consideration:

• Trello
• Evernote
• ProofHub
• Asana
• CoSchedule
• Google Drive

Developers designed these project management and collaboration apps to help you plan, manage, collaborate, organize, execute, and deliver tasks quickly. 

3. Leverage Healthcare-related Online Apps

The employee workforce is your organization's greatest asset. So, to maintain the health of your asset, introduce and encourage the use of healthcare-related online apps. Wellness apps are ideal because they promote good health and wellbeing.

You can use relevant technology like Headspace. This tool helps in defining work-life balance through meditation.

Also, as stated earlier, stress is responsible for several health issues which may climax into chronic stress. But you can manage it by using healthcare portals. These programs help you tackle both physical and emotional health problems, which would result in a positive work-life balance.

With workplace wellness web applications, you can communicate with health professionals about any health issues. These healthcare portals are available to consumers 24/7 online. So, taking advantage of such technology enables you to create a healthy work-life balance.

It will let you manage your professional life and also take care of your health, thereby gaining a sustained work-life balance.

Health is wealth, they say, so make the most of it and:

• Store your health data in one place
• Communicate vital health information
• Monitor your health pattern
• Take part in healthcare, wellness programs.
• Evaluate health risks and cure

With high-tech healthcare programs like Intellectsoft, for example, you can invest in your work and health without interruption. You will become healthier, stress-free, and establish a better work-life balance.

4. Use Workflow Automation Software to Create Work-life Balance

Using workflow automation software to gain work-life balance is fantastic because it facilitates complex tasks and makes them convenient to control. Automated workflow apps can transfer information based on your operation command and application programming interface (API).

As such, the right workflow tool will simplify laborious projects and accelerate growth. You create operations and automate your work or business activities.

Moreover, the apps will integrate well with other software applications, including:

• Slack
• Quickbooks
• Google Sheets & Docs
• Facebook Lead Ads

Therefore, find the best workflow tool for your business or work and use it to create a better work-life balance.

Wrapping Up How to Use Technology to Achieve Work-life Balance Amid Covid-19 Outbreak

Technology has become a central part of our daily life–defining how we interact with customers, execute business, and perform tasks. The way you use technology will determine the effectiveness of your activities, including productivity, profitability, and of course, work-life balance.

Nevertheless, you can explore Principles: life and work by entrepreneur, Ray Dalio.

So, here is a recap of how you can use technology to boost work-life balance:

• Cut down on media consumption
• Utilize Project Management Apps
• Leverage Wellness software
• Use Workflow Automation apps

*Point to note* Use technology as a means to create a durable work-life balance, not as a dependable source for decision making. What are your thoughts? Please, tell us in the comments!