Bringing Personal Problems to Work

It is not always easy to separate your personal life from work. When numbers no longer match in your reports, or your balance sheet doesn’t balance – it’s a signal that the rough time you are having with your spouse is taking its toll on your work performance.

It’s possible to use your marriage hardships as an excuse for not doing your work. You can argue that sometimes you simply cannot switch off your miserable feelings. Yet are you sure it will make you feel better if you end up losing the job?

I will be honest about what inspired me to write this post. The receptionist in our office was fired the other day for so to say ‘unusual pattern of mood swings’. There were days when she would joke like crazy, but mostly she would totally ignore the ‘good-morning’ greetings and wear that unappealing expression on her face, which could imply just one thing: the world has offended her big time. She wasn’t married but according to the rumors she was actively seeking a life partner through dating sites, but would take each failure or rejection too personally which affected her work performance.

So a few ideas how to set a boundary between your personal life and work might be helpful.

1. Opening one door should close the other. Which means the second you walk into your work place, you mentally put a lock on any personal problem thinking. Try to visualize a huge heavy lock every time you mind goes back to the argument you had with your spouse this morning or the divorce papers waiting for you at home: there will be time to think about it, just not now.

2. Boring work leaves room for extra thinking. Engage yourself in some new activities, spice things up. If you have to update a report which has become a routine for you – change the report format, add more colors, experiment with layout. Find some original pictures for your PowerPoint presentation, come up with a new research idea.

3. Open up instead of shutting within. It does not mean that you have to cry on the shoulder of each and every one of your coworkers. Talk about positive things: ask them about their kids, plans for the upcoming holidays, recent shopping deals. Do not underestimate the healing power of communication: it sends your thoughts in a totally new direction.

4. If it is still more than you can take. Things happen, you feel like crap and are ready to lose control. You feel like giving up. You feel like crying. If the feeling is so overpowering, you might give in… but just a little. Give yourself exactly 5 minutes to go to the bathroom and indulge in crying. Once the time is up, put yourself together and go back to work, you should feel some relief. Once you feel the urge again, try to fight it, tell yourself: “I will take the next ‘crying’ break after 3p.m. – not sooner”. You can even put it on the calendar, to “show“ yourself how serious you are. But don’t cheat and keep to the schedule.

And remember: thinking about work as the distraction that you need is essential. It keeps you from falling to the bottom, it keeps you together, it keeps you sane.