Transitioning from professional to personal life can sometimes be quite challenging. You might catch yourself pondering over a major task while engaging with your children, or responding to work emails on weekends despite promising yourself you wouldn’t. I often declare my intention to set my phone aside when I’m home, fighting against the temptation to constantly check my emails. Yet, as soon as I find myself in the school pickup line or resting on a park bench, I’m glued to my screen, going through my inbox, firing off quick replies, and unexpectedly stressing over work matters during what I had intended to be my “off” time. I find myself snapping at my kids while juggling emails. I only partially engage with my husband as I attempt to draft a new proposal. It feels like I’m straddling two different worlds.
We often express a desire for a harmonious life where professional responsibilities don’t intrude on home time, yet our behaviors frequently suggest otherwise. At the office, we check Facebook and scroll through Instagram, our thoughts wandering to social gatherings and weekends. During our personal hours, we are drawn to emails or compelled to tweak a persistent project. When we should be fully present with our loved ones, we are only half engaged.
Our private lives suffer when we are continuously drawn back into work. This is a common awareness, and it’s a societal challenge we strive to address: the quest for a work environment that enhances our home life. No one wishes to be interrupted by pending tasks during their time off. Nobody wants their leisure compromised by work-related stresses. However, there’s another aspect of this work-life balance that we frequently overlook—that the quality of our work diminishes when we aren’t fully devoted to it as well.
Although we often claim to be overburdened and lacking time for ourselves, that story isn’t always accurate.
The reality is that for all our claims of being overwhelmed and having no personal time, that narrative doesn’t necessarily hold water. How many of us dive into our most challenging tasks at the start of the workday, maintaining unwavering focus from beginning to end? For entire 8-, 10-, or even 12-hour days? The number is minimal, if it exists at all.
A far more common scene is strolling into the office, checking emails, and browsing news articles. You might start tackling a project but encounter a minor hitch—something you could handle with a bit of perseverance—but instead, you choose to navigate to the vending machine for a snack, perhaps catching up with a coworker while you’re there. With a meeting on the horizon, you feel it’s not worth diving deep into the tough stuff, so you keep yourself busy with less demanding tasks. Following the meeting, you take your lunch and attempt to refocus afterward, but that can be a challenge. You might check emails again or make a phone call. By this point, there’s little time left to achieve a state of flow with the major project originally set for the day, so you fill the rest of the time with lighter work tasks. As late afternoon approaches, your mind wanders to dinner plans or evening activities. You wrap up the day feeling as though you’ve been active the entire time, yet not much significant work has actually been completed.
The reality of the typical workday likely includes far less productive work than we assume. We take numerous breaks, chat with others, drift off in thought, and browse social media. While there are moments of deep concentration, they are less frequent than we’d like to acknowledge. The flow state, where our productivity peaks? We don’t spend nearly enough time there, which is why we often carry thoughts of work into our off-the-clock hours.
Giving your all at work isn’t always straightforward. It requires practice to push through the discomfort that arises when facing a challenge rather than succumbing to the temptation of a “mental break” by switching tasks. It requires discipline to immerse yourself in your work instead of wasting hours on emails. The benefits, however, are substantial. When you learn to devote yourself fully to your work, it becomes significantly easier to do the same outside of work.
Mindful and distraction-free work can enable us to relish our home life more freely. We can leave work at the workplace if we’ve truly committed ourselves during office hours, knowing we can tackle any outstanding issues with a refreshed mindset the following day. We don’t walk away from our workday burdened with guilt, because if we haven’t frittered away our time, there’s no reason to feel guilty.
When it is time to work, focus on work. When it is family time, be present with them.
Even for those of us with nontraditional 9-to-5 roles, transitioning from work to personal life can still be achieved by being mindful and concentrated during our allocated work hours. Rather than checking emails every hour, I can set a few specific times each day for those tasks. When working from home, I can shut my office door, resist the urge to “check in” on everyone, and concentrate fully on my work.
When it’s time to work, immerse yourself in the work. When it’s family time, be fully engaged with them. We should strive to give our all in every task we undertake.
Enhancing our mindfulness in every aspect of our lives makes them richer and simpler to disconnect from when the time comes.
