Balancing Work and Personal Life

By Rachel Andrea Ko Go
Writer, Profiles Asia Pacific

Keeping your personal and professional lives separate is important for many reasons. It helps keep you professional at work and relaxed at home. It will help you stay productive, avoid burnout and keep you sane.
Modern day technology has made it a little bit too easy to access work from home. We can check our emails on mobile devices and have meetings virtually anywhere. This ease-of-access can wreak havoc on the separation of our work and personal lives. Here are a few tips to help you keep your personal life personal, and devote your work life to work.

• Unplug. Stop checking your work email once you get home and do not check any personal messages while you are at work.
• Use separate devices for your work and personal lives to make it easier to unplug (from work when you’re home, and from home when you’re at work).
• Create a to-do list for each day that involves work and personal items. It is important to put personal time on the list to make sure you do not get caught up in work.
• Block out periods of time that you can devote to either work or leisure.
• Do not discuss personal matters at work. During work hours, your coworkers are not your friends.
• If your personal life takes you away from work, avoid sharing the details. Just let your boss know, and move on.
• If you work from home, set up an office space that is not visible from your bed.
• Commit to only work when you are in the office, whether your home office or otherwise, and avoid working on your bed, the kitchen counter, etc.
• Extremely few people have the luxury to leave work on a day-to-day basis with a clear desk. Do not rush your job to get projects out of the way, just accept that you will have more work the next day and go home.
• Stop for coffee or take a walk on your way home to create a conscious action that symbolizes the end of work and beginning of personal time.
• Relax when you get home. Have a glass of wine!