A good work-life balance is about being able to concentrate well on the task in hand whether at school or out of work and our devices can often prohibit this. For example, being out with your friends for dinner and being in the moment with them whether that is talking, listening and/or having fun, not being distracted by messages pinging up on our phone.
Technology is driving many changes in our working practices. These days you can often do work in many places, meet virtually and your workstation is with you in your pocket or bag constantly. This is causing our work and out of work lives to blur into each other. It is even more important to use technology to aid our working practices not turn us into 24/7 working beings who cannot use the off button. In this day and age, we cannot rely on work to set our boundaries in terms of time; we need to.
Research shows that the term multi-tasking is incorrect. We do not multi task; our brains are not set up to do so. What we do is switch our attention and this takes up much energy plus we lose our focus. Email or phone grazing (or all other attention wavering activities) makes us less productive. Here are some tips to better manage your technology so you can focus better whether at school or outside of work: