I feel constantly overwhelmed by too much work-email always in my inbox and too many instant messages. It's like this leak that constantly fills up a bucket in your house. However hard you try to empty the bucket, it fills in again.
I am sure many of you experience the same. To add to it, if I go away from my laptop, the constant instant messaging and new email from work on the phone adds to the stress! There really is no work-life balance. The entire life is "worklife". I wonder how other people manage this distraction? I have stayed away from social media for a long while now. This definitely has helped to reduce my other distractions.
I miss the good old days (more than a decade ago). Where you left your work in office when you left for the day. Work from home was limited to the days when you had to bring your work laptop home to do some work. And I needed approvals to get a laptop! Life was easy. There were no "Smartphones". All that could pester you were SMS and most of the times they were never work related.
I am sure many of you experience the same. To add to it, if I go away from my laptop, the constant instant messaging and new email from work on the phone adds to the stress! There really is no work-life balance. The entire life is "worklife". I wonder how other people manage this distraction? I have stayed away from social media for a long while now. This definitely has helped to reduce my other distractions.
I miss the good old days (more than a decade ago). Where you left your work in office when you left for the day. Work from home was limited to the days when you had to bring your work laptop home to do some work. And I needed approvals to get a laptop! Life was easy. There were no "Smartphones". All that could pester you were SMS and most of the times they were never work related.
I have a feeling this is just going to get worst before it gets any better. While I have been actively trying not to check emails on weekends and after office hours, it does not seem to help much. The more I think about this problem I realize that along with time, "attention" is my most important asset. I have to work towards constantly guarding it.
While 2021 is still far away to make resolutions, I hope I can really practice mindfulness and go on an attention diet.
Sort of agree. I never could work from home given we have a airtight ODC culture. But after Covid, we have got the systems home. I make sure I plug it off (literally) so there is no temptation of checking emails. Luckily for me, I cannot access client emails on mobile.
ReplyDeleteI would suggest keeping a separate laptop for office and for home. This might reduce the temptations.
Thanks for your ideas Vaibhav. I should split the work and home laptop to reduce temptations and also get rid of email on my phone!
DeleteYou don't delegate your work?
ReplyDeleteTo me it sounds like you want to do it all on your own...
-Sandeep K.