Since the pandemic started and everyone has been working at home, I’ve had a real desire to develop a healthy work/life balance.
Particularly for people with families, and young children especially, it is so important for your home life that when you get home from the office that you’re not gawking on social media all night.
I’ve often said that attention is the absolute most important aspect of social media, but your family needs attention too.
So in a world that’s ‘always on’, how do you keep an effective work/life balance? Here are 5 tips on making sure you don’t lose the attention of your family while gaining the attention of your audience.
- Schedule notifications on your phone
If you absolutely must have notifications turned on for your brand accounts, use a ‘do not disturb’ setting to make sure your not getting notified every time you get a like or share. It is these notifications that pull you out of your home life and straight back to work. You can’t do two things at once, so keep you attention focused at home, and let your followers wait until tomorrow.
2. Don’t let your work phone be your main line
If you’re working in social media there’s a good chance that you use your phone as part of your job. My advice here is that if your employer offers you a phone as part of your job, to of course take it, but keep your original phone too. It is tempting to just merge your contacts and work from one device, but what happens when you can’t get away from work on holidays, evenings and weekends?
3. Use your team to share responsibilities
If being on standby on your or your clients social media accounts is absolutely necessary, then share the lid amongst the team. The bigger the team the better of course, but ideally you’d like to be able to let one team member per day or week keep on their notifications in case something should arise. If it’s a major crisis they can notify the rest. Proactively do this, don’t wait for a problem to occur before planning your ‘on-call’ schedule. If you’re not sure that you need one, then your client isn’t paying you for it, so don’t offer it out of kindness.
4. Remove accounts when you’re away
If you are going on holiday and someone else is in charge, simply log out of all your brand accounts – and your emails. Simply log out of you have one phone for personal and business. If you have two phones, then leave one at home. Unless you’re getting a hefty bonus for being on-call during your annual leave, just leave the phone at home and feel the liberation!
5. Schedule social media time
If it is important to check your brand accounts, or even your personal accounts, set aside a specific time to do it. Say at 9pm, I’ll check social media for 15 minutes. Then do that, and put the phone away. This way you won’t feel as anxious about it and you’ll know you’re not eating into your home life beyond that period.
Follow these steps and you’ll feel so much better when you ditch your job for a bit of R&R at home or on holiday. Social media is all about connecting with people, so remember that and don’t forget to connect with the people you’re face to face with at home. Without one, the other won’t be seeing the best of you.
