How can you best balance work and life in digital strategy?

Setting clear boundaries is crucial for maintaining a healthy work-life balance in digital strategy. This means defining work hours and sticking to them, creating a dedicated workspace, and being disciplined about when and how you engage with work outside of these parameters. It’s about quality over quantity; focused work within set timespans leads to productivity, leaving space for personal life after hours. Digital strategists need to communicate these boundaries to clients and colleagues to manage expectations and respect personal time, which is vital for long-term career sustainability and personal well-being.

Find your most important tasks and allocating time accordingly. Prioritize based on their impact on overall goals and deadlines. For instance, begin with high-priority tasks that contribute directly to the success of your digital strategy, such as developing a key marketing campaign or analyzing critical data. Set a realistic goal and allocate specific time slots for focused work and avoid multitasking to enhance efficiency. Create a daily or weekly schedule to help organize your workload and incorporate designated breaks to prevent burnout. Embrace technology tools like project management apps to streamline tasks and keep track of progress.

Self-care is fundamental in the high-paced digital strategy field. It encompasses adequate rest, regular physical activity, healthy eating, and mental health breaks. Taking care of yourself boosts cognitive functions, creativity, and overall work performance. It also involves setting time aside for hobbies, family, and social activities, which can rejuvenate one’s perspective and prevent burnout. Digital strategists should see self-care as an integral part of their professional strategy, as it directly impacts their ability to perform and innovate in their role.

One of the best ways I’ve found to strike the right balance is looking for ways to integrate the two together. Over the years I’ve found there’s a lot more in common between our personal and professional lives than there is different, especially when you focus on root probems. For example, a root problem I was challenged with years ago was building strong relationships through digital channels. However, rather than just solving for work, I set out to solve it for both since I knew mastering this would benefit me personally as well. As a result, rather than only trying to solve for the work situation, I looked for new and different ways to experiment and solve for it across both work and personal life. This allowed me do integrated work.