When you spend so many hours focusing on work, it’s hard to go home and push it all out of your mind. Pressing pause on your work to enjoy your personal life isn’t something that comes easily to everyone, especially in certain industries and working environments.
However, over 90% of people say they work over 50 hours a week, and most of them said they had poor work-life balance due to personal perfectionism, company culture, workload, or pressure from supervisors. Sure, you might be bringing in the big bucks, but working like this leads to burnout—plus, dissatisfaction at work AND home.
So, how do you stop it? What’s the key to setting boundaries but still being productive? That’s what we’re discussing today. Learn how to leave work at work and reclaim your home life below:
How To Leave Work At Work?
Keep your personal phone personal.
One of the hardest parts about maintaining work-life balance is the constant cell phone notifications. It starts small with a quick text or an email, and suddenly it becomes an expectation that you drop everything day or night to answer the phone and solve the problem.
This not only means work spills into your personal life, but it totally invades your social life! You start dreading doing anything on your own cell phone. Without your phone, you may start isolating from people and missing out on updates and opportunities to connect.
Respectfully, keep your phone for personal use only. Don’t link your work emails to your phone app and don’t give clients or co-workers your personal number. If you have to maintain some type of work communications on your phone, try using a third party app that you can snooze when you’re not at work.
Be productive at work and write down your accomplishments.
If you’re one of those people that feels like there just isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done, consider trying out some productivity hacks that can help you work smarter, not harder. There are lots of ways to maximize your time, stop procrastinating, and achieve more in your day!
Things like time-batching, setting goals, and limiting distractions can really help you get important work done and get home on time. The Career Contessa has lots of great content on this, but this episode called “How to Be Productive By Harnessing Motivation” is a great place to start.
However, if you’re a part of that nearly 40% of workaholics that say their perfectionism is what keeps them working away well past clock out, you should take a different approach. Writing down each task you complete will help you fight that part of your brain that says you didn’t do enough. You can read more about how to identify and tackle toxic productivity HERE.
Tell your roommate or partner when to expect you home.
Next, you need an accountability partner. Creating good work-life balance means not only leaving work at work, but leaving work when you’re supposed to. It’s so easy to work just a few more minutes and then those few more minutes turn into a few more hours and, before you know it, you’ve skipped dinner, missed the new episode of your favorite show, and the only words you said to friends and family are “gonna be late.”
To help combat that, tell your roommate or partner (whoever you live with) what time they can expect you home every day. Not only will this give you your personal time that you so desperately need to decompress and recharge, but it’ll also make you more productive during the day. That end time will act as a daily deadline that’ll motivate you to stay focused and get your work done more efficiently.
Decompress with a podcast.
Speaking of decompressing . . . We’ve discussed how you need to physically leave the office to leave work at work. However, mentally leaving work at work is just as important. To do this, you need a daily habit that takes your brain from work to home.
Your commute home is the perfect time to make this transition, as you’re physically travelling from one place to another. Listening to podcasts is our favorite decompression tool! You can turn on an episode and be transported into another world or topic that occupies your mind with something other than your mounting to-do list. By the time you get home, your mind is pondering podcast episodes instead of projects!
You can browse Dear Media’s list of shows and find something that really connects with you. We’ve got topics covering everything from mental health and parenting to relationships and finances. If you work from home or need more ways to decompress, check out this list. And, to learn more about the importance of separating work and life, read this post.
Establish hobbies and passions outside of work.
Work cannot be your whole identity. If it is, you’ll run into the problem of bringing work home time after time. Engage in other hobbies and activities outside of work to find purpose in your personal life! If you’re unsure of what your calling might be, listen to the episode of Him & Her titled “How to Find Your Passion, Balance Work & Personal Life, & Build a Career on Your Own Terms.”
Here are some ideas of hobbies to try along with podcasts that’ll help you engage deeper with that new activity:
+ Get Crafty with Caviar Dreams, Tuna Fish Budget
+ Read a book with the Readheads Book Club
+ Journal with The Dream Bigger Podcast
+ Cook or Bake with Food Heaven
+ Exercise with Ready, Set, Spill
+ Start a podcast with us! 
Podcasts for Work-Life Balance
If you’re interested in learning more about creating boundaries and reclaiming a healthy relationship with your job, listen to these podcasters’ thoughts about work–life balance:
+ Work Party: Kourtney Kardashian on Poosh, Money Negotiations, and Work/Life Balance
+ With Whit: How to Find Work/Life Balance, Network, and Say “No”
+ What We Said: Become a BALANCED BOSS!
+ The Nicole Walters Podcast: Balance is Bogus
+ Life with Marianna: Jessica Alba on Honest Work-Life Balance
+ Divorced Not Dead: The Impossible Balance
Find the balance between work and home life by setting boundaries, doing what you love, and maximizing your productivity!
If you’re feeling stress at work and at home, it’s time to reevaluate your work–life balance. You can fall back in love with what you do, and reclaim a real social and personal life when you take the time to separate home and work. We hope the tips and resources above will help you create that definition and start feeling more fulfilled!
Check out our blog for more mental health advice and podcast recommendations.