Entering the workforce can be daunting — you want to do well, you want to make and keep a good first impression, and you’re also coming into a new, ultra-important stage of life that is likely completely different from your life before it.
Leave the office on time, and don’t take your work home, these two lessons are true for every person who wants a long, happy, and satisfying career life.
But it’s very hard to put that advice into practice. It took me the first 4 years of my career to figure that out. And I still have to remind myself that life is bigger than work.
Almost everywhere that I’ve worked in the past, there was a “perception is reality” culture.
That means looks are more important than reality. In other words: The person who’s in the office the longest appears to be the hardest worker. Now, that may be true.
But that’s not what matters. We all know that the only thing that counts is results. However, we collectively insist on looking at vanity factors like participation in meetings, hours spent at the office, and how fast people respond to emails.
It’s pathetic. At our family business meeting, we encourage everyone to leave when they are done for the day.
We’ve learned that focusing on priorities is a much better metric than only looking at the hours someone works.
But think about why you’re working in the first place. You’re there to contribute. To your own company, or the company you work for.
Working Too Long Is Unproductive
Now, I’m sure people love to be in your presence for 10 hours a day, but that doesn’t mean you have to stick around so long that you become unproductive. Because that’s one of the main reasons we’ve stopped working standard 9 or 10 hour days. It’s useless.
There’s a large body of research that proves working long hours is counterproductive.
Working too much and the stress that goes along with it can lead to depression, sleep problems, impaired memory, and even heart disease, etc.
You get the idea. That’s why my rules of work is this:
Leave On Time
Your work hours are the typical 8: am -5: pm, you’re required to achieve a significant amount of result on your daily tasks or projects assigned to you.
Taking work home typically makes you unproductive because it prevents you from getting the recommended hours of rest.
The longer you stretch your working hours, the more stressed you are likely to become. According to doctors, working too much can actually kill you, and taking work home makes you unproductive.
Leave Your Work at Work
Taking your work home has a way of ensuring that you always find yourself with backlogs of work because, after some time, you will become trapped in the psychological cage of knowing that you can always take the work home with you.
One thing you should know is that backlogs portray a level of unprofessionalism and failure as it leaves you with little or no time for ideation or innovation at work.
What this means is that you will only continue to succeed at getting by. If you are looking to give your best in the workplace and to your career, find a way to priorities your tasks and stop taking work home, ensures you always don’t have backlogs on your desk.
Relax a bit, have leisure time for yourself, cook dinner for your spouse, take the kids for a walk. Whatever.
Look, living a happy life is very simple. It’s all within our control. We can decide what makes us happy. I have printed quote from Marcus Aurelius on my journal to remind me of that:
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
We all know that money, success, fame, or recognition, by themselves, don’t make us happy. And yet, we work too much to obtain those things that don’t even make us happy in the first place.
Leads to an Unhealthy Lifestyle
Constantly taking work home over a period of time will eventually pave way for an unhealthy lifestyle especially if you’re always striving to get the work done.
After some time, you will find yourself denying yourself adequate sleep in order to get work done. Within a short time, you will begin to rely on extra cups of coffee to help you stay awake.
You must protect yourself against too much work and it’s straightforward. Just leave the office on time. Whether you love your job or not — it doesn’t matter. When it’s time to go home, GO HOME!
Work is about achieving results. If you can’t do that in 6–8 hours a day, you’re not effective. So instead of working overtime, read a book on personal effectiveness or get productivity training, to boost your working lifestyle.
So why do we keep working too much that it hurts us?
It could be our ego. Maybe we just can’t help ourselves. It’s different for every person. All I know is that too much work has a negative impact on the quality of your life and work.
What matters is that we protect ourselves from our own stupidity. As adult, we’re just like kids. We need rules to live happily and safely.
When you get to the point where late night snacking and other nocturnal habits become regular, you will find yourself sleeping deeper and deeper into the abyss of being overworked and stressed.
Affects Your Personal Life
ultimately, taking work home will affect your personal life. It becomes even worse when you are married because this habit will prevent you from having any meaningful time to spend with your spouse and kids. If you’re dating, you will not be spared because your relationship will also feel the wrath of you taking work home.
As a single person who isn’t in any intimate relationship, you are not spared from its negative impact on your social life. Don’t make your life all about work by taking work home. Learn to unwind, rest and spend time with people you care about.
That’s why the first rule of work is that we leave the office on time. The second rule is that we don’t take our work home.
And the remaining rules? Let’s not worry about that for now. We’ll get to that another time. It’s time for me to go home.
By Sheila WILLIAMS
