Malevolently it sits there, throbbing gently and exuding guilt every time you pass. It is in control of your mood and is determined to ruin your weekend. There is no escape…

It is your briefcase, stuffed with work you have brought home to do over the weekend. You knew in your heart when you packed it that you would not get it done. But still you brought it all home even though you have a busy weekend of family commitments. Why, oh Why?

Managing Work-Life Balance

Many years ago I had a boss, Mike Fitzsimons, who taught me a valuable lesson, one I practiced until recently. He pointed out that although we have good intentions when we take a bag of work home at the weekend we rarely get it done. If we do it is often at the cost of domestic harmony. The description of a case of work throbbing gently in the corner is his. His alternative approach was to get into the office early on a Saturday and clear the work he would otherwise have taken home. Generally he had it done by coffee time and was back at home well in time for lunch with the rest of the weekend clear in front of him.

At the time we usually worked away during the week on client sites so we did much of our work in hotel rooms; there was not much else to do. It was in the days before e-mail so there was always administrative stuff to do when we did make it back to the office for a few hours. By going in and clearing the administrative backlog he could relax knowing it was not building up.

I started doing the same and spending just an hour or two in the office early on Saturday rather than taking a bag of work home. It had the advantage that my boss and I were also able to catch up, share information and plan our response to any new opportunities or challenges. By 11am I was done and the rest of the weekend was my own to enjoy with the family without guilt.

It is important to find a way of separating work and home life. If one does not, one may wake up one day and find there is only work. And work is uncertain in these times of austerity.

So why do I not still use the same approach. The challenge is that I work from home so that unfinished work is sitting on the desk in my study. There is no real escape but I work for myself and accept it. However, it will be a growing problem for the increasing number of corporate knowledge workers who are now based from home. The secret may be to adopt a variation by having a weekend curfew on office work; ideally close the door of the study until Monday morning.

It is tricky, as I suspect most of us use the same computer for social e-mails and web browsing. Like a virus, the malevolent bag of work is evolving into new electronic forms and has even infected our mobile (cell) smartphones. Unfinished work keeps finding us. Is there no escape?