Work Life Balance
The pandemic has meant that many of us have been working from home for some time. But this has been a mixed blessing. While there is more time to spend on yourself and family due to not having to commute, the line between working time and leisure time has become blurred. But this can affect the work life balance.
Take email for example. You take a long lunch because it was a nice day and the dog was really enjoying her walk. So you log back into work for an hour after the kids are in bed. There is an email from the boss, do you reply? It is going to take more than an hour to research the answer and reply to him.
Always Connected
The culture of companies can have an enormous impact on the mental health of employees. Some companies have an “always on” / “always connected” culture. Meaning it’s expected that you are available at all hours of the day or night. I personally believe a balanced approach to extra hours is fair and reasonable.
There are busy times (the end of a project, month end, year end, etc.) and an employee should expect to have to work harder / longer at these times. Correspondingly, when there is less demand employers should redress the balance (added time off, leaving early, etc.). An employer who always wants you to work at 100%+ all the time will be rewarded with high sickness levels, high staff turnover, stressed employees and burnout.
Recently, some European countries have passed “right to disconnect” laws. These laws mandate that employers must have a policy for email use after working hours. The idea is to reduce the number of employees having to use email after work and over the weekend.
Today, email is an integral part of business and is an incredibly powerful communication tool. So much so, that employees often feel pressured to check it out of work hours. According to one recent study, the average employee spends 28% of their working day on email and 45% of employees check their work email out of hours.
This means you never properly switch off from work to recharge, recover and relax. And this, in turn will impact your relationships with friends and family. As Jacqueline Leo (American magazine Editor and media Producer) said, “One look at an email can rob you of 15 minutes of focus. One call on your cell phone, one tweet, and one instant message can destroy your schedule, forcing you to move meetings, or blow off really important things, like love, and friendship”.
And Jacqueline Leo’s point is supported by research. Soviet era Psychologist, Bluma Zeignarik, found that people can recall tasks that are uncomplete or were interrupted 90% better than tasks that were completed without interruption. This Zeignarik effect means that uncompleted tasks stay in our minds much longer than completed tasks. Our minds see emails as mini-tasks and so email can be on your mind 24/7. As the inbox begins to pile up, you cannot stop thinking about all of those incomplete tasks.
Practical Steps
So what can we do about your work life balance? Well here are some suggestions.
- Learn to switch off, unplug from work and be strict with yourself.
- Develop a non-digital hobby – physical sport, a craft or gardening.
- Use the features of email to help you. Set an auto reply when busy or unavailable, block spam, Inbox rules (auto file some emails in folders without reading them immediately).
- Unsubscribe from unnecessary newsletters, mailing lists, etc.
- Allocate and block out time for email, for work, for lunch, etc.
- Use the calendar and set reminders to do things.
- Follow and encourage other to use good etiquette – Avoid reply all (should this be a meeting?), send emails in normal working hours, think about who you copy in, etc.
As Gretchen Rubin (American Author) said, “Technology is a good servant but a bad master”. Make technology work for you – be its master, not its slave.
Hypnotherapy can be an effective way to help you with stress, anxiety and burnout. If you feel this could be for you, then contact me.
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