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A common issue among careerists is knowing when to stop, especially among the next generation of professionals. Passion strikes so fervently, it leaves one to wonder… When do you turn it off? And how? Early in our careers, should we be striking a balance? Or should we be going at our careers full-force?
Brazen member Cameron Plommer recently related the following:
I have a problem letting go of my thoughts after the work day is over and I should be devoting time to my personal life, mainly my girlfriend. I have such an urge to write and put my thoughts down on paper. It’s just hard for me to let it go until the next day.
Can you relate? Turns out, a lot of us can. Here are the top suggestions from the Brazen Community in response:
On the way home, “toss it out”
Stephanie: Establish a pattern of "letting go" of your work, whether if it's through notes or exercise. Another good way I've heard of is to pick a certain spot on your drive home and imagine "tossing out" all of your work worries onto that spot. Either way, try to consistently get rid of your work worries in a certain place!
Gabor Maroti Dr.: Practical advice: on the way home try to evaluate the happenings of the day briefly first, but during the second half concentrate on your girlfriend etc., try to find out programs for the evening. Reaching home focusing on the words of your girlfriend, probably she needs help related to her matters.
Aurian Campbell: For use on particularly tough days is the half-way point, or 'dumping ground.' What I mean by that is allocating 45 mins in a coffee shop halfway home with the company of a journal. I time it, dump my thoughts, and admit to myself that anything not worth remembering in those 45 mins of focused switch-off time isn't worth remembering until the next day (that is the hard part).
Evaluate your situation
Ellie Behling: I also have trouble with this. You didn't mention whether you like your job but maybe the reason you are holding onto thoughts has something to do with an unresolved issue in the workplace. I know right now our jobs are less likely to change than our attitudes about them, but perhaps there are some things you can work out in the workplace that are keeping you from relaxing personally.
Make your girlfriend an ally
John Baker: Give yourself the gift of an ally. Explain the need for some extra time here and there to your partner to get the writing in. Chances are she will appreciate your effort and will understand when there's something that cannot wait for the following day. This will help you stick to your schedule better because she will become part of your day's schedule - the goal at the end of it!
Kathryn Smith: I think I'm lucky I found a significant other who is as devoted to work as I am, so we understand each other and neither feels neglected when one person gets particularly wrapped up in a project.
Try cooking
Aurian Campbell: I find [cooking] to be a focused, simple task that has a defined outcome. If I've spent all day thinking or absorbing information, cooking helps me remind myself that I am happiest accomplishing things rather than just thinking about them. Do you have a task that might engage you in a similar way?
Sean Cook: I think that cooking is a great way to connect to the present moment. I particularly love to grill out. The aromas coming off the grilling food, and the fresh air kind of kick me into a more mindful zone. I find it's easier to let me thoughts flow freely when grilling. I enjoy my thoughts rather than getting stuck in them. Drafting thoughts and coming back to them also let them percolate and develop more fully.
Speak it, write it, get ‘er down
Kristen Jeffers: I've began keeping notebooks around. Also, I turn off the main lights in my house. I also joined a gym so I can work off steam and relax my tense muscles. I work in customer service, so I understand how hard it is to let go of the day
Sean Masters: I get my thoughts out of my head and down on paper (or Google Docs ;) ). Realistically, your brain operates on a reward model i.e. until you do "something" your mind will fret over it. Getting your thoughts down on paper (hopefully) gets them out of your head and lets you focus on other things.
Kathleen Vallejos: If you have thoughts that need expressing but don't have the time to write them out, try a digital recorder. We can speak our thoughts much faster than handwriting or typing them out. You could try recording them on your way home from work - that helps you let them go, and they don't have to interfere with your personal life. Be sure to state the date/time at the beginning of the recording if you want to go back later and transcribe them. Good luck! It has been a lifesaver for me.
Detach those cords
Paul Balcerak: The only way I can really detach is to *literally* detach myself from whatever electronic devices I have. There's no casually checking my iPhone or logging on to my laptop for a few minutes. I punch down my best ideas as drafts on my WordPress site and if I don't have time for them right away, I come back to them the next day.
Do as the smart ones do
Patricia Hudak: "Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense." - Emerson
Have a suggestion to add? Let us know in the comments. And find this conversation and more in the following networks: Work/Life Blur and Personal Development.
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Comments
12.31.69
12.31.69
04.12.10
Lol, this is a problem?
Okay, it was a problem for me but once the divorce came through, my problem was solved. Well, once I found the perfect guy who thought my job was just as compelling as I thought it was.
PS. no, I don't believe this is the solution for everyone. Just a moment of levity.
04.12.10
For those of us with over-active brains, the key is finding a hobby -- a hands-on hobby. Try playing the piano or guitar, cooking (as mentioned in the post) or something else that physically and mentally makes your brain shift. Your brain will then have to focus on that instead of thinking about the day. Meditation and yoga are good too. I've practiced a form of meditation that involves staring at a candle flame for 5+ minutes and describing it to myself mentally. Sounds weird, but it actually gives the brain a rest. Leaving the office to take an hour lunch break and free yourself from the computer screen (as well as other mental breaks throughout the day) are great. Put your well-being first, not your company's. Aging helps as well -- I find that the older I get, the less I care about work and all the "stuff" we have to deal with throughout the day :)
04.12.10
If cannot change your behavior....find other activities to replace them
Work/life balance is a challenge. I too find it extremely hard to turn off my thoughts. Something simple as watching a TV commercial I find myself intuitively picking it apart and analyzing its effectiveness good or bad, as opposed to just enjoying it for what it is. The only solution I have found to keep my mind serene is to read. In the words of a famous doctor, “you cannot get rid of a habit….you have to find other things to replace them”.
04.12.10
beer
04.12.10
Ummmm......something like that Scott..lol
04.12.10
I question the label "passion" for the relationship with work that's being described. When I think of things I'm passionate about, there is some connection to getting particular things done. At a given moment, I can identify the things that will advance the goal. Rest comes naturally, unless there's some specific worry at a particular time.
The constant enmeshment and immersion in the workplace, the social relationships in it, the electronics devices, etc., is addiction. It can't really be "balanced."
04.12.10
I love this question and the way you framed the issue. It's a real challenge to balance mental health with the desire to create and accomplish, and I appreciate the way you put it out there.
I think it's broader than work/life balance and more like -- resting/doing balance. Sometimes the desire to do can be so overwhelming that there is little time or desire for rest. However, we all know intuitively that we need to rest our bodies and minds in order to maintain our sanity. What to do?
My approach is to use systems like GTD and daily meditation practice as supports for my overactive and overstimulated brain. This means that even if I can't "force myself" to take a break, I have a dependable system to rely on to get me to slow down. Love from family and friends also helps ;-)
04.12.10
I've been using the phrase "Work-Life Balance" for a long time, and recently I've started to resent it. I resent, in particular, the way that it makes us look at all of our activities as needing to be placed into their own separate walled gardens; as if work and life are engaged in a constant zero-sum game for survival.
For me, success is less about balance and more about blend. Over the past 3 years, I worked full time, held together a family life and completed my masters degree all at the same time, and it taught me a lot of great lessons about life management.
First and foremost, I let go of the idea that I could turn each of these sets of activities on and off at will. There were lots of times where I had to do schoolwork at the office, take a work call while we were on vacation; heck, I even closed the biggest deal of my career while I was in class one day, over skype chat.
Entrepreneur, student, family man; these are not containers that need to be filled with my time, they are components that make me who I am. The most important activity for me was to talk to all of the people in my life, my soon to be wife, my bosses, my professors and classmates, and let them know about all of the other aspects of my life, to set the expectation. This way, when I have to duck into a conference room to take a call from my study group, my boss knows that I'll make that time up somewhere else, that at the end of the day, everyone in my life knows that they will get support from me and I expect support from them.
Call it partnership, call it blending, But I think we should stop calling it balance....
04.12.10
``Passion strikes so fervently, it leaves one to wonder… When do you turn it off? And how?``
Wow.. why would anyone want to turn off passion. So few people are passionate about their careers, anyone who is definitely has nothing to complain about.
04.12.10
I agree with those commenters who have said that what this article describes is not passion. I think ``When obsession strikes..`` would better describe what Cameron is experiencing.
04.12.10
Interesting dialogue -
The word "careerist" in the first sentence of the blog post sets a certain tone. To me, a careerist is driven by established, exterior milestones of professional success, which is very different than being driven by anything resembling passion. Britney Spears on the stadium circuit three months after the album is released as contrasted with Jerry Garcia in some tiny nightclub with a second band after a long summer tour. Different pictures, though both pushed themselves to self-destruction!
04.13.10
passion for work.. and I will call it passion for one to succeed in his/her career. But to balance this with work and life.. a challenge.
Not in a superstitiuos manner sense, I once read a story where a man was give a stone to b e buried by a native witch doctor, in his door steps; the man to step on the stone when leaving home and asked the stone to keep all his domestics issues as he leaves for work; and his return from work step agin on the stone and ask the stone to hold all the issues from the work. This to be repeated anytime the man steps out or returns to his home.
This worked for man. He did not carry his anger from home to work or vice versa. and the man became successful in his work-life balance.
I guess, this could work for most of us.
Put into practice.....
04.13.10
Mike Diliberto's point is really interesting about the word "balance." Mike, you seem to be raising the question of whether the idea of balance is pointing us in an unhealthy direction.
I don't think the idea of balance is problematic in itself, I think what you're getting at has to do with compartmentalizing. It seems like placing life into neat little compartments always comes back to bite us later, and that's the real problem. I like what you wrote about telling people all the things you do so you set up the expectations. That's a really good point in my opinion.
Compartmentalizing leads to a lack of stability because life simply doesn't work that way. As Mike points out, we get calls for work at home or calls from home at work. And it's broader than phone calls now that nearly everyone takes work home on their computer, or might even work from the house. There are no neat temporal and spatial boundaries around work like there used to be. Yet, the language of most work/life balance writers still reflects a bygone age. How do we make sense of this?
I do think the idea of balance is important because balance is about handling competing tensions. The reality is that we do have competing tensions in our lives -- do we spend time with our partner or do we finish the article we're working on? These daily choices can be made more easily when there's a sense of mental balance. However, it doesn't imply that we need to compartmentalize our lives to achieve mental balance. In fact, it probably helps to integrate all aspects of our lives so that our learning in one area informs and helps the others.
04.13.10
I've found that exercise and working out is the best off switch. I go to a personal trainer with a couple of friends on Mondays and Fridays and I have no choice but to switch off on those days because I have to interact with them on as an athlete. On Tues - Thurs I try to either run when I get home or hit the weight room. I make it a point not to talk to my gf about work.
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