Bringing work home can impact life
Guilty of carrying your workplace drama or unfinished tasks when you get home? Experts say your habit may be affecting your loved ones
Anjali Shetty
Prioritising work and balancing your personal life is essential to having a smooth sail as far as your relationships are concerned. In today’s world, increasing work pressures have made it difficult to find that much-needed balance. Also, the challenges faced at work can affect your personal life. Dr Parul Tank, a consultant psychiatrist, agrees. She says, “Maintaining a balance between your professional and personal
DR BINDOO JADHAV
lives is very tough, especially when the boundaries that we set are fluid. The way forward is to realise that work if we bring it home, can have an impact on your life.”
With the web and phones becoming part of our everyday lives, we are always in touch with office colleagues or working even at home. But, Tank says that we should ‘unplug ourselves’ from work at home. She says, “People need to focus on building their relationships when they are at home. In our race to climb the ladder, we are unable to say no to our colleagues and seniors. As a result, we try to finish humanly impossible tasks, which impact our mental and physical health, and also our relationships. We need to learn to be assertive and say no to tasks that can be delayed.” At times, there may be too much to do, and there is no way you can’t bring work home.
Dr Bindoo Jadhav, a psychiatrist, says that in such situations, ‘appropriate and timely delegation’ of work can help reduce stress and ease the burden. She adds, “When pressed with meeting too many deadlines within a short time frame, have open communication with your family regarding this so that social activities can be planned accordingly. As far as possible, one should try to finish work at the workplace itself. Improved attention and concentration, better planning, organising and scheduling of tasks and cultivating multi-tasking skills will help achieve deadlines and decrease the spillover of work at home.”
DIVIDING LINE
Setting up a designated workstation might also help. It provides for a separate zone for work and also helps reduce work-related clutter. For example, if you work with a laptop on the bed, this might be a source of disturbance for your partner and result in issues.
Jadhav says, “A designated time and workplace at home is beneficial in many aspects. This way, family members will be aware of it, and doing so would avoid clashes related to schedules and social activities. One should try not to be driven by the competitive work environment and neglect his/ her time and responsibilities towards the family.”
LEARN TO DIFFERENTIATE
With looming deadlines, people these days don’t have fixed working hours, and many of us take work home. Jadhav says that we no longer know how to segregate work and professional lives.
She says, “It is important to learn to differentiate between important and urgent tasks. We need to learn what’s a priority and do it accordingly. This way, we will be able to give time to people in our personal lives.”
LEARNING TO LET GO
Another aspect of our professional lives that many people bring home, though unknowingly, is that of tiffs with colleagues and setbacks at the workplace. Jadhav says that these factors may ‘contribute to conflicts at home’.
She says, “Remember to never combine or discuss work problems at home. Don’t let a fight with a colleague or boss spill over to your partner or family members. If you are mad at someone at work, leave it there. Don’t bring that anger into your home. Maintain a nowork talk policy at home.”
It is important to learn to differentiate between important and urgent tasks. We need to learn what’s a priority and do it accordingly.
PSYCHIATRIST