What do you do if your workload as a manufacturing engineer is overwhelming your personal life?

My thoughts are to "Shut the iron doors on the past and the future. 'Live in Day-tight Compartments'". From Chapter 1 of a book by Dale Carnegie titled "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living."

To start, realizing that we can only impact change with the way we react to our situations, taking a moment to focus on what we can truly control and presenting a levelheaded response to the task at hand.

You want to look to resolve the issue permanently and use leverage on similar tasks. Too many times we see us putting in patches to get by and then on to the next issue. Take the extra time. Look at long lasting solutions that can fit the timeline and costs. If these better solutions don’t fit the timeline, patch first but work with production schedule to identify a break to implement the better solution. Leverage is using what you learned from your issue resolution and then copying to similar potential processes or stations.

Capacity planning is most important tool in the manufacturing sector, if there is proper management of available resources or managed outsource resources, we are clear about our targets....so we can avoid unnecessary overwhelmeds.

Identify Critical Tasks: Focus on tasks that have the most significant impact on your projects and deadlines. Use techniques like the Eisenhower Matrix to categorize tasks by urgency and importance. Set Clear Goals: Break down your work into manageable chunks with clear, achievable goals. This will help you stay focused and avoid feeling overwhelmed by the bigger picture.

No matter your level of knowledge and capabilities, without dedicating time for yourself, personal well-being, and a fulfilling life outside of work, any time management advice becomes irrelevant. Firstly, be mindful of your current situation and strive to regain balance in your life. Only then can you effectively prioritize tasks and goals based on your specific business opportunities.

Define limits between your work and personal life, if this is an emergency situation probably you will decide to sacrifice some of your personal time to solve the issue, but if this is permanent you should review your work load, validate if you are not performing not value add activities, duplicating activities and review with your management about this work load

Identify Delegable Tasks: Determine which tasks can be handled by others on your team. This includes routine tasks that do not require your specific expertise. Trust Your Team: Empower your team members by delegating responsibilities to them. Provide clear instructions and follow up to ensure the tasks are completed satisfactorily.

Once you review your workload, it could be you found some activities that can be delegated, this will need to be review on how much your team is prepared to receive this delegation and will not require increased time to supervise delegated task.

Use a SaaS tech, to make visible all the invisible equipment anomalies in one simple view, turn hard to find problems into real time actionable intelligence & free up more of your valuable time.

Its important keep open communication with your management about this kind of situation and risk involved, with data collected previously request support on spreading activities, removing nonvalue add activities, provide additional resources. Mentos support, if available, could be great as an experienced eye and looking out of the situation will bring a different perspective.

Professional Help: Don’t hesitate to seek help from a mentor or a professional coach who can provide guidance and strategies to manage your workload effectively. Peer Support: Share your workload challenges with colleagues who may be experiencing similar issues. Collaborating and sharing solutions can reduce the sense of isolation and provide practical tips.

Taking break session in every work mileage can help reduce stress from workload. Team bonding in the workplace will help reduce mental stress, balancing work life with friends, colleague & families also vital.

Regular Breaks: Take regular breaks to rest and recharge. Short breaks can significantly improve productivity and reduce stress. Healthy Lifestyle: Maintain a healthy lifestyle with regular exercise, a balanced diet, and sufficient sleep to help manage stress levels.

It's typical hype. Multiple things cannot occur at same time. Even personal time can have conflicts like with kids, with friends, doing hobbies etc. On the contrary you talk on phone with family members while in office. It's important to develop ability to isolate ourselves. At work be at work, at home be at home.

There are always times when the workload is going to encroach on your "private" time. In my sector/job it goes with the job description although it doesn't happen too often but when it does its all hands on deck. Learn to live with and accept that these times do happen. Or find another job that totally excludes this fact of life