How’s your work-life balance? Is work a rewarding and fulfilling part of your life, or is it something that has grown to take up so much of your time and energy that you resent rather than enjoy it? The pace of our lives today, and the fact that modern technology means we’re always reachable, can make it very difficult for us to “switch off” from work.

Of course, we all have times when we’re especially busy, and need to put in extra hours. But for a healthy work-life balance, that situation needs to be the exception rather than the norm.

In this article, we help you to identify the warning signs that work is taking over, and give you some practical tips to help you get your life back in order.

The warning signs

First, the warning signs! You really need to re-evaluate your situation if more than two or three of the following apply:

You are regularly working more than 10 hours a day.

However hard you work, you never ever get to the bottom of your in-tray.

You can’t remember the last time you had a really good laugh in the office.

You suffer from “Sunday-night blues”.

When you get home from work, you feel physically and emotionally drained.

You can’t get through the working day without regular fixes of caffeine/chocolate/nicotine.

If these statements describe you and your situation, you’re getting to the point where work is taking over your life. That’s no way to live. Work should be something that adds to, not detracts from, the quality of your life. Your work should interest you, energise you, and give you a buzz. But it should also leave you time to enjoy the other aspects of your life — your friends and family, your hobbies, and other interests. We work best when our lives are in balance.

So if you’ve allowed yourself to get into the situation where work is ruling your life and your nearest and dearest have almost forgotten what you look like, how do you get out of the rut? Here are our top tips:

You don’t have to be the first person in or the last person out every day to be effective: in fact, people who work ridiculously long hours are simply demonstrating that they aren’t able to cope with the job! Make an effort to leave on time at least three nights a week — your colleagues will thank you for it. A good way of making yourself stick to this is to put a specific appointment in your diary so that you have a reason to leave on time.

Learn to say “no”. Every time you say “yes” to a task, you are saying “no” to something else, so make sure that you choose the right things to say “no” to. Make a list of priorities and make decisions accordingly. Obviously this is more difficult in a situation where your boss has asked you to do three things at once — but don’t let them get away with passing their own inability to prioritise onto you: ask them which task is more important or needs to be completed first.

Remember the 80-20 rule: 80 per cent of a task is completed with 20 per cent of the overall effort, but getting that last 20 per cent perfect takes a disproportionate amount of time. Use your judgment to decide when “good enough” is a better use of your time than ensuring that every detail of something is perfect. This is not an excuse for sloppy work, but it is important to be able to distinguish between situations where perfection is required and where it isn’t.

With a bit of thought, planning and practice, you can free up hours every week to spend on the things that matter to you. And the irony is that spending less time at work will make you perform much better when you are there!