Even if you enjoy your job, its important to have a healthy work/life balance. The inability to detach from work can have a profound effect on your home life. Bringing the stresses of work home with you, or not being able to separate work and home life can result in you not finding any time and space to rest, relax and recover properly from work, or to enjoy your life away from your job.
Working from home can seem like the perfect job; no commuting, not having to tolerate annoying colleagues or bosses, avoiding the office politics, having your whole kitchen and contents available to you for your lunch but working from home can also make it difficult to separate work from home life, making detaching from work related tasks more difficult. Anyone who successfully works from home will tell you that the best way to be able to detach from work is to create a physical and psychological divide between work and home life. Creating an office, or space in your house, an area dedicated just for work, can create that divide. When you have completed your work for the day, close the door or pack the area and contents away and don’t stray back in until you commence your next days work. Though it can be tempting to work in your pajamas, dressing for work, even in your own home, will psychologically prepare you for the day and differentiate between ‘before work’ and ‘starting work’. Asking not to be disturbed by other family members will allow you to focus on getting your work done and so allow you to give your full attention to family or home related matters when you’ve finished.
Leaving the work at the work place
For workers, who have a place of work provided by either their employers or their clients, it’s important to develop the habit of leaving work and work related discussions at the office. If you have to take work home with you, decide an allocated amount of time beforehand and, if possible, stick to it. Use the commute to act as a buffer between your work and home life. Instead of talking and thinking about work, or doing work related tasks – read an engaging book, listen to the radio or your favourite music, or have a relaxing nap. By the time you get home and walk through the door you will have separated yourself mentally as well as physically from work. If for some reason, you do have to talk about work when at home, decide on a specific amount of time to do this. Consider if your discussions about work are necessary. Are they constructive and essential or just about having a moan about other colleagues or the company.
Maximizing your life outside work
Sometimes it’s difficult to detach from work because it dominates our lives. We feel we have little time in our lives, the weekend feeling likes it’s over before its really begun and evenings being little more than recovering from the days work and preparing for the next. In order to counteract this, plan constructive, enjoyable, tangible things to do when not at work, don’t regard it as just time to rest from work. This will create an actual and mental work/life balance and help detach from work to enjoy your home life.
Use the functions on your tech to switch off work related apps etc, email and social media that you use for work. If its not part of your job requirement to have to stay in contact, don’t be scared to turn off your phone to avoid work calling you during your time off!
Bio: Jen Smith is a Life Coach & Writer. She has tried many career paths herself and now helps people achieve their goals and dreams.
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