Set boundaries.

 

This blog could also be called, 'separate elements of your life,' or, 'distinguish the different elements of your life.'

Whatever you want to call it, it's about making distinctions between your working life and your family time.

How do you start your day? Do you immediately pick up your phone and check your emails and messages? Or do you get up, go for a walk, get a cuppa and break in to the day without technology?

I always take the dogs out first thing, the only contemplation of work at this point is to make sure that I am doing everything so that I am on time for my first client. It's not until I am back from walking and the dogs are fed that I do my first social media marketing for the day. 

I get it, being self-employed is so much harder to segregate, especially when your office or work space is at home. But you do need to set yourself some separate space, know when you are working and when you are not. Only go to your work space when you are working.

I have a lot of clients, hypnotherapy clients that say to me that work stresses them, not only in work time but when they are at home too.

Firstly, if your job is stressing you that much, it's time to get a new job. But if, for whatever reason you can't do that, then you need to know how to close the gate on work and leave it behind at the end of the day. When you leave the building, that's it, work is over, it's only a means to pay the bills and buy food after all isn't it? So close the door, bolt the gate, get in the car and drive away leaving work behind, literally, and in your mind also. Do not let it bother you again until you enter the building the next day.

Easier said than done, but you need to try. It works the other way too. How can you do your job competently when you have home life in your head? Have you problems at home? If you can't immediately deal with them, you need to leave them there, they won't help you with your job, they will only distract you. Leave them at home and deal with them when you get back there.

You need to get into the system of opening and closing gates, compartmentalise the different aspects of your life, and be complete in the one that you are in, don't allow the others to creep in. Focus on the now, where you are and the task you are there for.

I have some great hypnotherapy techniques for helping people to do this. Open and close the gates, but try it yourself, visualise a great big gate closing behind you when you leave work, the gate in your mind, bolt it, lock it, alarm it if necessary, and leave work behind. You will find that your work-life balance improves.