1. Step Away From The Email
Earlier this year, a report circulated that a French law banned employees from checking work emails after 6pm. It wasn’t true but fitted with our notion of the French as a nation of slackers favouring long lunches, five-day weekends and plenty of slap and tickle while les rosbifs carried on working through the night. But maybe there should be a law against after-hours fielding of bosses’ emails? “It would be impossible to enforce,” says Leeds-based life coach Melanie Allen. “But companies should think about productivity. Is this incessant checking of emails and social media by their employees adding to productivity or just pointless stress?”
2. Just Say NO
If you’re available 24/7 to your boss’s – with all due respect – increasingly loopy and unremitting demands, and you’re the kind of person who as a result gets overloaded, try harnessing the power of no. Allen advises: “If you tend to say yes without thinking when you’re asked to do something extra, stall. Don’t answer straight away. Say you’ll get back to the person asking, then use that time to think clearly about whether to say yes or no. If you want to say yes, fine. But if you want to say no, say no and keep saying it. Don’t justify your actions or give excuses.” The Mental Health Foundation recommends that when work demands are too high, you must speak up. Your role model here might well be Eric Cantona: in the Ken Loach film Looking for Eric, he instructs a dithering Englishman on the power of saying no. Or rather “non”.
3. Work Smarter, Not Harder
There’s a belief that working more and sleeping less boosts success, with Margaret Thatcher often cited—she reportedly thrived on just four hours of sleep. Today, some call it “sleep hacking,” training your body to need less rest. But US academic Matt Might argues that this mindset is flawed. In his blog, he explains: “Work = unit of work/hour × hours worked.” Too many focus only on hours, neglecting productivity per hour. The Mental Health Foundation advises: “Work smart, not long.” That means tight prioritisation—limiting time per task and avoiding time-wasters like unstructured meetings. We’ve all sat through meetings dominated by loud voices that never challenge the status quo. This isn’t working smart. Despite longer hours than some European peers, British productivity remains low. The toll? The Foundation reports that long hours leave 27% of workers feeling depressed, 34% anxious, and 58% irritable. Clearly, smarter work—not longer hours—is the better path forward.
4. Leave Work At Work
Imagine you’re about to leave work, maybe heading for cocktails—even if it’s only Tuesday. Before you go, jot down any outstanding tasks or thoughts. “Then shut the diary, turn off your PC, store your message and leave,” advises Allen. “Focus on the image of closing the diary or powering down your PC.” If this isn’t possible, try Allen’s stop-breathe technique: take a slow breath and acknowledge that your workday is over. If you can’t do that at the office, do it on the train, bus, or even in your car—sit for a moment before starting the engine.
Closure is essential for a healthy work-life balance. The Mental Health Foundation suggests that if you must bring work home, confine it to a specific area. Physically closing a door on work—even symbolically—helps reinforce the boundary between your professional and personal life.
5. Forget About Perfection
The idea of putting work away sounds simple—but what if you realize something wasn’t done perfectly and go back to fix it? “Some people find it very hard to let things go,” says Allen. “I call it ‘good enough versus fabulous.’ Sometimes, if you’re overworked, you need to tell yourself what you’ve done may not be perfect, but it’s good enough.” She gives the example of a woman returning to full-time work who’s frustrated by how her partner does the laundry—T-shirts inside out, sleeves mangled. “But she has to let that go or she’ll end up doing more when she’s already stressed.” Don’t put pressure on yourself when it’s not needed—at work or at home. As Netmums tells working mothers: “Give yourself a break. It doesn’t matter if your home’s not immaculate and your children aren’t fed super-nutritious, cooked-from-scratch food every day.”
6. Don’t Be A Martyr
“There is also the tendency I come across where somebody will say, ‘I have to do everything round here,’” says Allen. “To feel like a martyr gives some people a great deal of pleasure – they feel they’re powerful and busy.” And what’s wrong with that? “It’s worth thinking about how infuriating that is for other people. The reason most people are martyrs is that they want the approval of others; if they realise martyrdom – just doing all the work – is exasperating to be around, they might stop behaving that way.”
7. Ease Off The Adrenaline
Do you need the rush of adrenaline all the time, whether it’s at the gym, in the sack or at the coalface of paid employment? “You really ought to monitor that,” says Allen. “You need to ask yourself how well your life is really going. What happens often is that those hooked on adrenaline hop from one rush to another – from one task to another, from work to gym. What’s that like for your family and friends to be around? Not much fun, especially when you crash – which inevitably you will.”
8. Think about retirement
“Some people are wedded to work, especially if they’re self-employed,” says Allen. “But I get them to ask themselves: if work is the only thing you do, then what happens if you lose your job or if your business fails? I don’t underestimate the difficulties of putting work back in its box at a time of austerity, but I try to encourage my clients to think of it this way: for most people there will be gaps in employment. What do you do then? And what about when you retire? Sure, you may well carry on working in a part-time capacity, which I think is a good thing, but you will need other interests in life when work becomes less important.”
9. Make ’em wait
One way to avoid being incessantly available is to make it clear to your colleagues that you will reply to emails within 24 or 48 hours. “As long as you’re reliable about replying in the end, it’s surprising how little this bothers people,” argues Oliver Burkeman, author of Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done. Quite so, but texting is based on different parameters – to send a text is to expect a quick, even immediate reply. But fear not, remember point two – just say no. You need to make it clear that you’re not endlessly available for work queries outside working hours. Admittedly, that’s easier said than done.
10. Set your own rules
“You really need to find your own work-life balance, probably with the help of others,” says Allen. “The important thing is to ignore the shoulds – the shoulds that come from others or from internalizing their mindsets. You have to rely on your own intuition.”
We’re witnessing a generational shift in attitudes toward work. Millennials (born after 1980) are more likely to blur the lines between work and home. Around 81% of them believe they should set their own work patterns. For some, this might involve virtual meetings (like Skype), working from home when they choose, and, ideally, having a no-recrimination clause to prevent backlash when they decline work on weekends.
While the ideal might be a dream, finding a workable balance is key. The evolving workforce seeks flexibility and autonomy, pushing companies to consider how to adapt to these changing attitudes and redefine traditional work expectations.
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