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Managing the Work Life Balance with the Help of Technology

B - Original Content Digital Innovation
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A 24/7 business cycle coupled with the smartphone invasion can create a seemingly insurmountable workload making it increasingly impossible to achieve the ideal work-life balance.

But desperate times call for desperate measures, and for the tech-savvy there's a myriad of apps to help fight back against the increasingly blurred lines between work and play. However, it can be challenging to find the best APP that suits your work/life diary

Even if you love your job, working 24/7 simply isn’t an option. Strike that. It is an option, but only for a limited period of time. As eventually you will burn out and that would be a huge shame because all that passion you once had for your work will disappear.

So, needless to say, you have to strike a balance between time at your desk and time away if you want to stay happy, healthy, productive, and more than anything sane.

If you need some help keeping things in check, these 5 APPs offer unique and effective solutions. Including how to stay calm, they’ll help you make a work-life balance a reality and not just something your friends tell you that you need to work on.

  1. Breathe Sync – When you're stressed, your heart and breathing get out of sync. BreatheSync gets your breathing and heart back in sync fast, so that you feel more relaxed and think more clearly. BreatheSync is a simply designed iPhone app that helps you get in sync wherever you are. It picks up your pulse through your finger on the iPhone camera lens, analyses it and gets you breathing in sync with your heart. We call this synchronised biofeedback breathing. You'll call it ‘a great way to feel great fast'.
  2. Wunderlist – this is an APP which will help you simply get stuff done.  Whether you're planning a holiday, sharing a shopping list with a partner or managing multiple work projects.  This is an APP here to help you tick off all your personal and professional to-do's
  3. Rescue Time – irecords how much time you spend in certain programs and on certain web sites, and found it kept me accountable to how I was spending my time. I could see how I was spending every minute of the day, and point out where I was wasting more time than I realised.  The great thing about RescueTime is that it requires barely any work to set up, and you can have a pretty efficient system churning in about a week, most of which you'll spend doing what you normally do—working
  4. Pacifica – this is a free smartphone app that is designed to use the principles of Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Mindfulness to help with daily stress, anxiety and depression. With anxiety and depression being the most common mental health disorders, I’m glad that app developers are addressing this issue. There are six major aspects to Pacifica and each one has a special way of helping the user address with the causes of these common mental health issues
  5. Trello – Trusted by millions, Trello is the visual collaboration tool that creates a shared perspective on any project. It is a fun and highly visual online tool that helps teams collaborate and keep track of projects using kanban-style management. You can bend this flexible tool to your will and once again it makes work that little bit stress free if you need to be connected yet disconnected.

“In terms of time saving bookkeeping I can definitely recommend Receipt Bank and Trip Catcher combined – they enable you to record your mileage, parking receipt and then coffee – maximising your business trip instead of time being spent on admin – it also links nicely then to accounting systems such as Xero and Quickbooks online – job well done!!” Lauren Harvey, Director at Full Stop Accounts

Here are a couple more APP suggestions including the excellent accountancy APPs Xero and Receipt Bank, plus Thrive Away, Pocket and not forgetting Spotify – as music always seems to ease away the stress

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Over the past 6 years, Rachel has been working specifically within the digital marketing space and has worked with some of the country’s top brands. During this time, Rachel was a key attribute to the success of our sister product, Recruitment Buzz, which has firmly established itself as one of the leading publications within the Recruitment sector. Drawing on her knowledge and experience, Rachel has developed a genuine understanding of how content can engage and compel an audience.

Having a passion for travel and culture, Rachel left her hometown of Cardiff to pursue studies and travel and after several years away, Rachel returned to Cardiff and firmly established herself within the development of Business News Wales. Rachel is now responsible for every aspect of web management, marketing and overall production of the Business News Wales brand.

Having learnt some invaluable skills within the marketing industry, Rachel is often called upon for her skills and knowledge of WordPress, HTML, email marketing software, Photoshop design and social media tools.
 

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