from lifehack.org
The keys to going home gracefully
It’s a myth that you will one day be able to go home from a clear desk. It’s never going to happen.
The plain truth is that there will always be work undone at the end of the day.
This gives you three options:
1)
Go home, but take the work with you and spend your evening doing it. This ensures maximum friction at home, minimum rest, and returning to work next day tired before you start.
2)
Drag your body away, leave the work, then spend the evening fretting over what you left behind.Same results for friction and rest. When you get back to work next day,you’ll be tired—and the work will not have been done either.
3)
Leave the work behind gracefully, forget about it, and enjoy a relaxing evening. No friction, lots of rest, return next day refreshed and ready to tackle what’s waiting for you.
Here are some techniques to help you achieve the last of these threeoptions: to make a smooth transition between work and home at the endof the day, have a pleasant evening, and get the rest and refreshmentyou need.
- Treat your commute home as a positive time to wind down and start the process of relaxation.Play some favorite music, if you can. Whistle or sing to yourself.Enjoy the drive or the train journey. You might as well, since you haveto do it, enjoyable or not. Don’t catch up on the news. It’s bound toremind you of work or depress you.
- Match your journey time with the time you need to relax. Ifthat means taking the long, scenic route, so be it. If it meansstopping at Starbucks, that’s just fine. Your family and friends willprefer you half an hour later in a calm mood rather than half an hourearlier in a foul one.
- Never hurry home. If you do, every hold-up, traffic jam, late train, or missed bus will be a source of additional [color=#3366cc ! important]stress. Take it easy, even if you don’t dawdle.
- Treat your commute home as your time—a period justfor you. All day at work, you’re at other peoples’ call. Now it’s timeto to relax and be yourself. Don’t turn the people at home intoimaginary “bosses” monitoring your progress along the way and eager tocomplain over every lost moment.
- On a bad day, leave for home early and arrive on time or later.The worse the day, the more time you will need to relax. The worstthing to do is stay late, then rush home. You’ll arrive like a grizzlybear with toothache.
- If you need to rant and vent, do it along the way. Curse theworld in the privacy of your own vehicle. Park up and yell where no onecan hear you. Walk to the station the long way, yelling and cursing(silently!) to yourself. Don’t walk in the door when you arrive andstart into a rant. Who wants to welcome anyone like that?
- If you must take work home—and you should treat that idea as youwould infecting yourself with a specially repulsive socialdisease—agree a set time to do it and stick to that agreement.Early is best. If you spend an hour or more working before you get intobed, you’ll be wide awake, probably sleep badly, and start the next dayoff on a poor footing. Besides, who wants to make love to someonerunning over budgets in their head at the same time?
- When you get home, pay full attention to whoever’s waiting for you.Never be present physically and mentally elsewhere—it’s an insult. Eventhe most insignificant domestic matters can wean help your mind awayfrom work.
- Always keep your promises. If you’ve arranged to eat out,don’t cancel, pleading tiredness or extra work. If you’ve promised tohelp your child with homework, do it whatever. Firstly, people whobreak promises are teaching those around them a dangerous lesson.Secondly, though you may really, really not want to do what youpromised, you may well end up enjoying it—and feel far more energizedthan if you slumped in front of the TV. And lastly, you promised, remember? Don’t be a jerk as well as a wimp.
- Be firm with yourself. In the end, leaving work behind,mentally and physically, is down to you. You have to want to do it,decide to do it, and then do it—and keep on doing it until it becomesthe norm. Slowing down and clearing your mind of the leftovers from theday is an act of will. You may think that watching TV or distractingyourself in some other way is a short-cut, but it isn’t. The minute youease up on the distraction, all the worries will be back.
Using a few techniques like this can help to send you home as thekind of person your family will be glad to see—the kind of person whospends an enjoyable evening with them, gets a good night’s sleep, andis ready to go back to the office to do a good day’s work the next day.
Guess what? It will all still be there in the morning. Forgetting aboutit for an evening will not cause the business to collapse, the marketsto crash, or civilization to come to an end. Sadly, all of us areutterly expendable. If you went under the proverbial bus, the worldwould go on smoothly without you. Remember
that when you’re burning the midnight oil.
