How To Be Done With Work Each Day And Really Mean It!

Which scenario sounds more like you?

The Always On. You come home from work (or leave your remote work area), looking forward to some time away, but you continue to check messages throughout the evening. You start the next day feeling like you never really left work at all.

The Overachiever. You have a successful day at work and accomplish more than you planned to get done. Instead of relaxing and giving yourself some time away, you think about all the other things you didn’t get to, and you mentally (or physically) return to work to try and knock out a few more items.

Driven By Guilt. You have a terribly unproductive workday. Too many meetings, interruptions, and a lack of focus on your part have left you feeling frustrated. While you had planned to have a fun evening with the family, you instead choose to head to the bedroom with your laptop and try to catch up from everything you didn’t get done today.

Any combination of these scenarios, if consistently undertaken, lead to all kinds of problems. Burnout, overload, chronic stress and strained relationships are a few that come to mind.

“But that’s just the nature of work these days,” you say. I agree that the traditional 9-5 workday has gone the way of the Sony Walkman and wide neckties. 🤔 What I still believe is needed, however, is that clean break from work. A space of time dedicated to personal renewal and nurturing of relationships. A time to be reminded that your work is a part of you, not what defines you or your success.

If you’re nodding your head in agreement right now but feeling helpless as to how to change, fear not! There are so many ways you can take action to create and protect the space you want to use for more than responding to messages and furiously typing on your computer. Here are some of my favorites for each type I mentioned earlier:

The Always On

• Create friction. Make it harder to check for messages by placing your phone out of reach or turning off your laptop. I had one coaching client who would put their laptop in a closet inside a suitcase to prevent them from heading back to work!

• Set a technology free time for yourself. I don’t allow myself to check email or messages between 6 and 9 PM. If my family or close friends and business associates want to get in touch with me, they know to call if it’s urgent.

• Train your team. If your emails or Slack messages are coming from many of the same people, let them know when you will and won’t be available to respond to messages. Set notifications to “away.”

• Tell your family. There is no better accountability partner than a child or a significant other.

The Overachiever

• Determine what “done” looks like for the day. Often I find that this type didn’t do a good job with their morning planning routine. They simply made a list of 57 things, took a deep gulp of strong coffee, and said, “Let’s get to it!”

• Schedule non-work activities just like work ones. Think of them as something to be done for you to achieve what is important to you.

• Plan a non-work activity that forces you to stop work each day. Unplanned time is uncomfortable for high achievers. Having an activity that requires you to move to a different location helps make a cleaner break with work.

Driven By Guilt

• Give yourself some grace. Not every day is going to be meet your standards for productivity. Look for alternative ways to assess the success of your day. Did you help move something forward for someone else? Work through a tough challenge? Strengthen a relationship?

• Identify something you will do differently tomorrow. Reflect on what derailed your day. What was within your ability to change how things turned out? What boundary or routine can you start tomorrow?

• Don’t let one guilt spawn another one. Be realistic. When you wake up tomorrow, what will you most remember… getting the work done last night… or missing out on time with your family?

In my book, Juggling Elephants, I compare our lives to a 3-ring circus. Those rings are a work ring, a self ring, and a relationship ring. If I were to ask you which one is most important, what would your response be? You would probably respond with, “They are all three important.”

Based on your response, it would seem that to neglect any one of these rings would negatively impact our ability to be our best in the other two. I think you know where this is going.

Being done with work for any amount of time opens up opportunities to get into one of the other “rings” that will ultimately make us more effective once we return to work.

What do you need to do to really be done with work more often?