During this worldwide and deadly pandemic a fair amount of ink was spilled about how difficult it was to stop working when the normal hours of business operation were finished. I find this kind of hilarious because it’s nearly impossible for me to get anything at all accomplished that takes more than 10 minutes because I absolutely know I will be disturbed at least once during that increment. I spend more time talking people thorough problems they’re trying to solve in completely inane ways during the day than I do working on things that would potentially solve some of those problems ahead of them being dragged to my (virtual or otherwise) desk like the corpse of a murder victim.
That person is dead. You should really be thinking more about burying them before they start to stink than how we could potentially jolt them back to life with a sufficient charge of electricity.
I’m an operations guy at heart despite what my job title may say about being senior guy who cleans up terrible messes or whatever. I wouldn’t say that I run towards the sound of a car accident necessarily but I do chase ambulances just to see what broke and who might be responsible. It’s a terrible habit that I’ve never successfully broken myself of. The one aspect of those situations that I’ve handled better as the years progress is waiting until everyone clears out of the office or until the Slack DMs slow down to 3 per second or so. I’m not going to get anything accomplished while the people who are right up against a hard deadline (sorry!) or the gawkers who read trade magazines are peppering me with (dumb) questions and (well intentioned) ineffectual offers to help out if they can.
Anyway, obvious mockery of self improvement listicle sites aside, I think this guide, which ironically was published before Covid-19 was a virus we are all too familiar with, has a solid list of strategies to avoid feeling like you can never mentally leave work. It was what instigated all of the venting at the beginning of this post in large part because I wish I was better at incorporating straightforward measures towards making work a lesser part of my life. It’s a short and pointed list that avoids all of fellow pandemic kids tactics that more irksome sites lean on especially hard and we could all use a 1100 word break from that.
