Establish boundaries and stop bringing work home

 Just because you are employed by your boss and work a very strict schedule for another company besides yourself, that doesn't mean that you cannot start managing your time better by setting boundaries at the office.  What does “setting boundaries at the office” mean?  Simply put, it means that you must take steps to let your boss know that you are already overloaded with work at home and do not want more of your personal time taken away.  But the trick is to do this in a manner that does not carry a negative outlook on you as an employee.

These situations happen to us all of the time at work.  It goes with the territory of working for someone else.  And like anybody who wants to make your boss happy, you probably tend to overload your time by taking on everything at once at the drop of a dime, regardless of what is already on your plate.  And more than anything else, you probably feel negative and annoyed with all of the work that is piled on you, which takes away from your personal time.

Rather than treat these unexpected work burdens during your day with a negative attitude, why not take a more positive viewpoint of why your boss is giving you so much work?  Look at it this way, you were asked to take on these additional projects because you are reliable, trusted, and in some cases, it may have been because you were simply available.

If you are concerned about the quality of your life and feel that putting in all of the extra hours for work is taking its toll, then you need to employ a few time management strategies that can work for anyone in your situation at the office.  Below are three tips that you can start using immediately to start setting boundaries at the office which will invariably contribute to the quality of both your work life and personal life:

1.  Although your goal is to work less at home, make it clear to your boss that you devote many hours each week at your home office to the company in forms of daily organization for the projects that you work on each day.  This will let your boss know that  you are already devoting your energy to the company after-hours, and this may keep you from being overloaded with projects in the future.

2.  When you are discussing work with your boss, be sure to focus on the actual results that you achieve during office hours, not the hours that you are putting in at home.  Psychologically, the more result-oriented at work that your boss hears of, the more he will focus on keeping work from being sent home.  The same is true for after-hours.  If you are always discussing the “results” that you achieve by taking work home, then you can count on plenty of work sent home in the future.

3.  Each office has its high-achievers who seem to be able to leave early, not work weekends, and yet produce a high level of results every week.  Make it a point to talk with them and ask questions.  Find out their work habits and ask how they manage their time so that you can employ the same techniques.