After six months of working from home, are you working at all hours of the day and night? Do you fear that you are burning out? Many dedicated executives and staff are feeling the stress of not disconnecting from their work. The result is depression, mental sluggishness, and declining work quality.
If you no longer work the usual time you used to work; how did you get there? For most of us, we unconsciously drifted into more work because we felt we had the time.
What do you do to get off this treadmill before doing self-harm? Start with asking yourself: “how am I really, really doing?” Here are some symptoms for you to explore:
- I find myself logging back into my computer when I am bored
- I am working morning to late night
- I feel I do not have a personal life anymore
- The quality of my work is not what it used to be
- My family resents my working all the time
- I feel my work never ends
YOU ARE NOW A WORKAHOLIC! YOU NO LONGER WORK AT HOME; YOU SLEEP AT THE OFFICE!
Here are some steps to help yourself and your staff as well if you are the delegating boss:
- Determine what your regular hours should be and ask other to respect them. (you may be surprised at the high level of cooperation) Set your phone on “Do Not Disturb” mode and you still get calls from your favorites list.
- Set up an out of office email message notifying senders when you will respond
- Try to schedule four hours per day away from your computer and work. It is liberating!
- Set more realistic deadlines and estimates of when work will be done. (your clients may well be having problems too)
- Set some self-care time to walk outside, read fiction, create some arts/crafts or in the kitchen
- Set a mental note on knowing when you feel “below the line” for positive mental outlook. Be ready to stop, walk away for a bit, and get your outlook back “above the line.” Establish a sustainable work schedule
- Lastly, every day ask yourself: “what is my good news today?” It is critical to keeping your focus and death is not a career objective.
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