What do you do if your work demands are affecting your personal life?

If work demands are encroaching on personal life, establish boundaries, prioritize tasks effectively, communicate limitations with supervisors, delegate when possible, and schedule dedicated time for self-care and relaxation to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Assessment and evaluation of a situation is key to finding solution to any problem. Recognize and acknowledge if your work is intruding your personal space and set healthy boundaries by open communication.

Also assess if it is temporary, or becoming permanent. It it is short-term for a few months because of the current aggressive project, then you can manage for that time. But if it is a norm, then the patterns need to be broken at the earliest. In a lot of these cases, nobody has asked us to mess up our personal time. It is us who let this happen. WE check our emails while having meals, we look at our phones constantly to see if there's any urgent message. We have to face the reality that we make things urgent for ourselves and our team members, even if they are really NOT SO urgent

As a freelancer, I've experienced work demands intruding on my personal life. -Initially available round-the-clock, it took a toll on health and personal time. -Implementing a digital detox and setting specific work hours restored balance. -Prioritizing self-care routines improved overall well-being. -Establishing boundaries and communicating availability effectively with clients ensured a healthier work-life balance.

When work begins to bleed into personal life it is time to assess, create, and communicate boundaries. Usually when work and personal life start to blend we have let some of the personal boundaries we once had erode to where they are no longer effective, or we didn't have any to begin with and now we are seeing the consequences behind that. Boundaries help us protect our mental, physical, and emotional health and they are perfectly healthy to have. So if you are experiencing the bleeding effect try this: 1. assess your existing boundaries, are they honored? 2. create new boundaries if you need to. 3. Communicate those boundaries to those whom they apply to. The communication part is the most important, people can't read our minds.

Closely evaluate your daily routines. Identify time slots where you need to focus on work - do NOT try to squeeze in personal stuff regularly at that time. Similarly, pick a few "me-time" slots - where you spend time with yourself or with your loved ones. Do NOT let work encroach those time-blocks unless urgent. Define boundaries and stick to them as far as possible. Remember, its you who has to define and respect them, no one else can do that for you.

Note that prioritisation should happen on personal tasks also. You will have commitments and responsibilities for your family, spouse, kids, friends, and even for yourself. Identify the different activities that needs your efforts and order them on (importance + urgency). Do NOT order them on ease of doing, or on your liking. You might want to pick up some tasks which are really quick (low-hanging fruits), but do NOT neglect or defer high priority tasks.

Most managers LOVE to hear from their team members and address their concerns. Believe it or not, most managers appreciate when their team members proactively reach out to them, share their concerns and seek help. It builds and strengthens trust, collaboration and professional bond. Remember that managers want their team members to excel and rise up, and stressed employees can NEVER do that. So it is in the interest of managers that their employees are mentally healthy and sound.

If you do so, use I-messages rather than you-messages. This way, you share your ideas in a non-offensive way. Speaking hypothetical also helps to share potential stressful topics.

Reach out to experts in this matter - get personalised assistance and coaching. You can go through videos and online tutorials, but they are NOT so effective in giving you personalised help - they would be more generic and might NOT completely apply in your scenario. To gain best benefits, I would advise that you reach out to professional coach. For a nominal price, you can get some cool, easy to adopt and life-changing techniques to manage your time and stress.

There are a lot of layers to this situation and nuances depending on the person/role, but in general most people need to get more comfortable with the discomfort of there always being more to do... the inbox doesn't need to get to 0 and the to-do list won't ever be fully done. It takes a lot to adjust to that, but understanding that it's unsustainable to operate otherwise is foundational to mitigating the impact of work on personal lives.