While rewarding, working in health care can be demanding. Because nurses hold significant responsibility, they must be able to find a work-life balance to prevent burnout. Setting achievable goals for the workday, developing time management skills and prioritizing time with family and friends can help make a balance possible.
Nurses have a significant amount of responsibility. They must manage patient caseloads, work long shifts, spend most of the day on their feet, prioritize patient safety and more. Their days are busy, and, with such an important job in health care, they must remain present and avoid making mistakes. Because of this responsibility, achieving a work-life balance is essential to career longevity.
You can give yourself a head start in learning how to achieve a balance while in nursing school. At Harding University, students in the accelerated Bachelor of Science in nursing program complete a rigorous curriculum to earn a BSN in as few as 16 months.
Finding a work-life balance is essential for professionals and students. Our dedicated faculty at Harding, including our academic success coaches, support and guide students in managing stress and achieving academic success, setting them on the path to becoming skilled, practice-ready nurses.
It can sometimes be challenging to find a work-life balance in health care, but by forming certain habits at work and home, you can achieve balance and find joy in your career.
Why Work-Life Balance Matters in Health Care
A work-life balance will help you maintain a passion for your career, prevent burnout and minimize the mistakes you make on the job. Health care can be a demanding field to work in, but it is also highly rewarding. Finding a work-life balance will help you achieve sustainability and enjoy the rewards. You must personally assess what you need to feel satisfied and take the necessary steps to strike a balance.
Nurse Work-Life Balance: Common Challenges
With so many nursing specialties and health care environments, nursing challenges can vary drastically. For example, the challenges faced by nurses in fast-paced hospital emergency rooms differ from those faced by nurses in private physician offices. Still, there are similarities across the profession.
Some common work-life balance challenges include:
- Demanding schedules and long hours
- Emotional fatigue
- Low staffing
- Patient caseload management
You are not guaranteed to experience these challenges, but if you do at any point in your career, know that there are steps you can take to overcome them.
Practical Ways to Create More Balance in Your Routine at Work
Achieving a nurse work-life balance requires focusing on both fronts. By putting equal energy into work and life, you can ensure one aspect doesn’t overshadow the other. To help make work feel manageable and not overwhelming, try the following tips:
Set Achievable Goals Each Day
Be realistic about what you can accomplish in a day. Create to-do lists, prioritize your tasks by importance or urgency and carefully consider what can reasonably be done in a day. Hold yourself accountable for your goals, but give yourself grace if some tasks are not completed.
When you set achievable goals, you’ll start to feel more confident in your workday and more positive about your career.
Build Time-Management Skills
Time management skills are crucial to achieving a work-life balance. Techniques such as batch tasking, where you group similar tasks and complete your to-do list in batches, can help you be more strategic with how you spend your time.
If you know the next hour is going to be slow, use this opportunity to complete administrative or quick tasks. Pay close attention to how long it typically takes you to complete specific tasks and spend your time wisely.
Time management skills take time to develop. Learn some tips and strategies you can use to better manage your time in nursing school and beyond.
Practice Cluster Care
Nurses must complete numerous small patient care tasks throughout a shift, including checking vital signs, administering medication, turning patients and more. It could take a long time to complete these tasks individually through separate visits.
Instead, the cluster care method has nurses bring the necessary supplies to complete all tasks during a single visit to a room. This helps save time and improve patients’ comfort by reducing the number of times they are disturbed throughout the day or night.
This is a method you will practice during your nursing school clinical rotations. Learning skills such as these early in nursing school can help set you up for success in your career.
Prepare Yourself for Long Shifts
It’s common for nurses to work long shifts, and without proper preparation, they can be physically taxing. To help prepare yourself and keep your energy up, try the following:
- Keep a water bottle and stay hydrated throughout your shift. Hydration can help improve cognitive function and mood.
- Incorporate regular exercise into your routine, so you can stay on your feet for long hours, better assist patients and remain alert throughout your shift.
- Maintain a balanced diet and pack nourishing meals for your shift to help you stay energized throughout the day.
- Take short breaks to help reduce stress and re-energize. Breaks are critical for maintaining energy levels and preventing burnout. Use these breaks as opportunities to clear your mind, stretch and refuel.
Consider Adjusting Your Schedule and Hours
Flexible scheduling is one of the many benefits of a nursing career. Shifts range from three 12-hour shifts a week to five 8-hour shifts to as needed. If you reach a point where your typical shift is keeping you from achieving balance, you can adjust your hours.
Consider what will help you achieve a better nurse work-life balance and talk with your supervisor to find a solution that best suits you.
How to Create a Balance at Home
A work-life balance cannot be achieved solely by adjusting your work habits. You must also adjust your home life. Try the following tips to help ensure work doesn’t bleed into your personal life, and your personal life doesn’t distract from work:
Build a Support System
Whether you are a working nurse or a nursing student, a support system can make all the difference. Leaning on friends, family and close co-workers for support can help alleviate stress. We can’t all do everything alone, so know when to ask for help.
You could also find support through mentors, support groups and mental health professionals. These resources can help you find the tools to manage stress and maintain your mental well-being.
Don’t Bring Work Home with You
Sometimes, it’s easier said than done, but the key to striking a work-life balance is not taking work stress home. That means making a concerted effort to establish clear boundaries. Establish post-work routines that allow you to release stress and reflect on your accomplishments. Find what helps you de-stress and make it a post-work habit.
Make Time for Self-Care
Scheduling self-care activities helps ensure they aren’t ignored. It’s important for your mental health to take time for the things you enjoy, whether it’s sports, a walk in the park, reading or watching a movie. Additionally, take care of your physical health through regular exercise, a balanced diet and regularly scheduled health check-ups.
Achieve Adequate Sleep
When you don’t get enough sleep, your cognitive function is impaired, your energy is lowered and your mood deteriorates. Getting enough sleep is crucial to your health and mental well-being. Ensuring you consistently sleep and wake at regular hours, creating a dark, quiet space to rest and limiting caffeine and alcohol can help improve your sleep hygiene.
Prioritize Time for Family and Friends
Scheduling and prioritizing time for family and friends is critical to achieving a work-life balance. Creating a shared family digital calendar allows you to easily communicate work schedules and important family events.
Nurses sometimes work odd hours, so you might need to expand your typical definition of a social gathering. Meeting someone for breakfast or a short visit to chat can go a long way for your mental health.
Set Your Boundaries to Support Your Well-Being
Setting boundaries can be difficult, but it’s critical to your mental health and well-being. No size fits all, and the boundaries you need may look different from those of others. You must be attuned to yourself and recognize when a boundary is necessary, such as not taking on an extra shift when you have an important engagement or are feeling overworked.
Other boundaries can include:
- Recognizing when you need a break and taking one
- Leaving your shift at your scheduled time
- Protecting your time off
- Maintaining professional boundaries
Are you looking for a career change? Learn why you should consider nursing as a second career.
Start Your Journey Today
As you consider taking the first step toward a nursing career, it’s understandable to be concerned about whether a work-life balance is possible. This is especially true for those entering the field later in life. Know that while there will be challenges along the way, nursing is an immensely rewarding career and worth the effort it takes to get there.
At Harding University, you will be supported through every step of your nursing education. You will never be alone, from the moment you first reach out to an admissions counselor to the time you graduate. Our values-based curriculum combines online coursework with in-person labs and diverse clinicals in northwest Arkansas, so you can graduate fast with a top-notch education that will serve you throughout your career. If you have a non-nursing bachelor’s degree or at least 64 non-nursing college credits, you might be eligible to earn a BSN in as few as 16 months. Contact an admissions counselor today to learn if the ABSN program is right for you.