Separating your personal and professional life – a scheduling guide

When you get so caught up in your business that you forget about your personal life, you must make a change. Spending nine hours or more in the office can be truly disastrous for the health of both your mind and body. This is the reason why you need to take breaks and recharge your batteries by doing what you love, with the people you love. If you work nine hours a day at the office and you arrive home to ignore your family and work some more, there is no boundary between your professional and personal life.

This should make you ask yourself several questions. Are you happy this way? Is this what you want? Is your family okay with the choices you make? The answers to these questions are most likely negative, so go ahead and see what you can change about your life. This short guide should help you schedule your life accordingly so that you don’t need to combine work and recreation anymore. Here’s what you should know:

Keep the work for your office

First of all, you need to understand that what happens during work, must stay at work. No matter how busy your work days are, you have to learn how to schedule your time so that you only work on the tasks you need to manage while you are in your office. Taking work at home will only stress you and your family out, not to mention that you are no longer productive after a long day at work, surrounded by your loved ones. Isolating yourself from your family and focusing on work even after your shift is over won’t get you anywhere. You should learn how to plan your time according to your available resources. Take into account that you don’t have an infinite amount of energy and you should save some for yourself too.

Focus completely while working

When you get into your office in the morning, you need to know exactly what you have to complete by the end of the day. During the work hours, you should focus on what you have to do, avoiding distractions of all sorts. In case you can’t maintain your attention focused a lot of time, you should apply a timing method. The most effective one is called the Pomodoro Technique and it involves sectioning your time into short intervals that are separated by a break.

For instance, you can work for 45 minutes straight and take a 15-minute break to give your mind a moment to relax. After the 15 minutes, you can go back to the task you have to complete. By working continuously, you will only tire your mind and you won’t be as productive towards the end of the day. It is important to apply such techniques so that you complete everything you have to do by the end of your shift.  

Getaways with your family

When the time doesn’t seem to be enough, you can compensate for the extra hours you spend managing your business with a short family getaway. One of the few locations that you can visit without a generous budget and a lot of planning is Staffordshire. The location is full of historical places that you will definitely enjoy. Taking your mind off work and putting together some conversation starters for you and your family will strengthen bonds for sure. Keep in mind that there are many companies that organize kids days out in Staffordshire for good prices. You won’t need to get involved in any planning tasks this way. There are many options to spend time with your family and separate the relationship you have with them what you need to do at work. You just have to find the one that’s right for you. 

Step away from your devices

Even though you may be tempted to answer a mail quickly while eating dinner with your family, that is not a good idea. Most of the times, when you receive an email while you are at home, it is probably something urgent that you may want to solve as fast as possible. Workhours are supposed to be respected, so you can deal with the situation once you get back to your office. These little distractions should be kept as far as possible, and this is the reason why you should take breaks from technology while you spend time with your family. Your personal time should be enjoyed at its best, and that won’t be possible if your phone keeps ringing and disturbing you. 

Make lots of plans

If you make plans, you will definitely try your best to respect them, for the sake of your family. This is why you should start making plans for the future month. Since Staffordshire was mentioned above, it would be a shame not to say a few words about the Statfold Barn Railway. Your personal time should be spent outside, with the ones you love, escaping from the brick walls and the dull atmosphere of your office. Take a moment and enjoy the things that surround you. Work can wait, but your mental health and wellbeing cannot. Value each moment you have and you will start feeling better and better.

Know you can’t fully separate your personal and professional life

Scheduling your time will definitely have a positive impact on your life, but you can’t expect to achieve a full separation between your personal life and professional one. The only thing you can do is achieve a convenient balance between the two. This balance should allow you to enjoy your family life, your passions, your hobbies, but your career accomplishments as well. Once you managed to find this balancing point, you will start feeling happier, healthier, more energic and so on. Just make the change, pay more attention to how you separate your priorities and you will see a difference in less time than you expect.