To stick to my working hours

[Sunnyengland]

I am in a client facing role, fast paced, monthly deadlines, large company, report on utilisation. We do have certain flexibility on how we manage our time but I put some extra hours during the week to keep on top of things.

I am getting a bit disheartened with the job for various reasons but can’t quit unfortunately as got responsibilities; but I want to make my job more liveable, stick to working hours, disconnect when I finish. Focus on what is urgent and leave the rest until I can do it.

Do people manage to stick to working hours? Fully disconnect in the evenings and weekends? Not think of work? How do you do it? How do you separate work from personal life?

I think I manage to do this by maintaining a sense of perspective about my job. It's just what I do in exchange for money to live off and I'm not willing to sacrifice my free time for it.

Thanks. I really want to learn to separate work from my personal life and not let it consume my thoughts. It occupies my mind a lot.

I don't work for free, that's what I always remind myself.
Laptop and work mobile off angry the end of the working day.
If something is buzzing round my head work related I write it down or email myself to get out or off my head and move on.

Thank you. This tips are helpful

It really depends on what you do. I could take that approach, but then my career wouldn’t develop, it’s unlikely I will hit my targets as the work peaks and troughs and therefore my salary won’t grow and I wouldn’t ever get a bonus, and eventually there is a real risk that questions will be asked if I am massively below my targets.

That being said, I earn a decent 6 figure salary even though I work part time, so it’s expected that I will need to work evenings and weekends when there’s a need.

I could change my career path and can work somewhere where I could stick to my hours, but I’d lose the salary at the same time.

This

I am not paid enough to work for free.

If I have to much work on, then I’ll ask what needs to be prioritised because it won’t all get done.

I work to live, so once I clock off I’m off doing things I enjoy, I don’t have time to think about work

Maybe it will slow down my career. But at this moment is just becoming too much. Bonus and pay rises are so small that I don’t think it matters

I decided to stop worrying about worrying about work out of hours and accept it was just my nature so I may as well look for a promotion that would make it better paid. Weirdly I find my higher paying job less stressful than my last one. I also waste less energy trying to stop thinking about my job and like others just make a note. I've got about 4 hours flexi on my timesheet so not working silly hours either. Lean in is my advice!

I make a list of all the things I need to get done during the day and tick them off as I go. If there is something I haven’t done, I’ll add it to the list/my calendar and finish it in work time the next day. That also allows me to stop thinking about it in the evening. It’s hard if you’re in meetings all day and haven’t had a second to actually do the work. Depending on the nature of your job, try doing the work in the meetings instead of talking about it and doing it afterwards. Having come from a job that continued hours after it should have finished, I now have a hard stop at 5pm. I’ve literally “gone offline” whilst receiving a call from a manager at 5pm and sent an “oops just missed your call” type message then next morning. Be uncontactable after work, make client meetings slightly shorter and use the extra time to fit in the work. Block out time in your calendar where you can’t be contacted.

Our household sees it as we work to live we don’t live to work

we do our jobs to the best of our ability but our work is not our lives so once we leave we are not at work and it stays there until we go back. So for me that doesn’t even mean physically as some of it is from home I just means I get the work done and work the hours I’m supposed to and I’m proud of the effort I put in but when I’m done working I’m living my life.

part of that is putting boundaries in place so not replying to emails or answering calls when I’m not meant to be working. If that means others get higher up than me then so be it as long as I make enough to live the life iv chosen (even if it may be smaller or more less luxurious than another’s life) then I’m happy

Don't have your work email on your phone

Thank you all. Some good tips here.

I don’t have company email on my phone and I don’t work on weekends and holidays but Put extra hours in the evenings to keep on top of things. I do frequently think of work so rarely fully disconnected.

I need to learn to put boundaries, write things down, understand that not everything can be done, not everything is going to be perfect and don’t feel bad if things go wrong.

Maybe it will slow down my career but at the moment I just want to keep my sanity and still have a job and money.

In my personal experience, people only work extra for these reasons:

-They are shit at their job and can’t cope with a reasonable workload in a timely manner

-Their boss is giving them too much work

-They get paid an absolute fuck load and it’s in their contract about extra hours sometimes

If you are the second one, then don’t bother working evenings. It is not worth it. Bonuses and pay rises aren’t worth it, and as i’ve learnt, you can be the model employee and still be made redundant in a flash.

I think that there are two separate things here.
There is working additional hours in the evenings to get your work done.
And there is thinking about work outside of those additional hours.
It is this second point which is probably the bigger issue as that it when it becomes all consuming and the aspect you probably have less choice over. What are your current strategies for separating work & home life? For example, I find it much easier to do on the nights when I have been to a gym class on the way home or meet up with a friend early in the evening.

Could a job/company change be worth looking into? It sounds like your hard work isn’t being valued at the moment, and maybe that’s at the heart of why you are doing extra work/thinking about work all the time.

This is the reason many teachers are leaving the profession.

Because they are "in meetings " for at least 5.5 hours of the day the prep for those meetings plus everything else has to be done outside of those hours.

All consuming, especially in term time.

The key is to prioritise your time during the work day and be honest with yourself about how you do this. Sometimes there will be an opportunity to take something additional on that you could decline or not volunteer for. Before taking on these things pause and consider whether you actually have the time. When agreeing to things plan to be 80% busy so you have some time to over run your estimates and still stay in your working hours. Delegate more if you can. Be honest with yourself whether something can wait until another day and recognise when you are choosing to work late to get the satisfaction of completing things that can wait.