jobs and careers

Scenario 1 – You are in a client meeting busy with your presentation, all of a sudden you realise that you forgot to pick your kid from school.
Scenario 2 – You are are completely engrossed in completing the year-end financial report that your boss has asked for. The phone rings, you take the call and realise that you have missed the dinner date you set up with your fiancé.

Do the above scenarios sound familiar? Well, workaholics face many such uncomfortable situations every day. Being engrossed in work and missing birthdays, anniversaries and other important events has become common. Who is to blame? Is it the work, lifestyle or oneself? The big question faced by workaholics is “How can I overcome this situation?”

Effective time management is the key to this problem. Set aside time for work, family and other things. Don’t just set time and leave it at that. Stick to it and ensure that you do keep up the appointments.

Planning and executing don’t always go together. You could start off by writing down your goals. Don’t get all charged up and fill pages and pages of goals you want to achieve. Keep it short and simple. Smart and achievable goals is the mantra. A few tips that would be helpful are:

• Identify your problem areas.
• Sit with your family, partner or alone and note them down.
• Allocate family time and work time.
• Urgent work emergencies are unavoidable. It is OK to deviate from the goals once in a while. Don’t make it a regular occurrence though.
• Be well organised at work. That would surely apply to your family life as well.
• Check on your progress and see if you have improved or still lag behind. Make amendments and improvise.
• Do not bring office work or issues home. Spending quality time with family can never be compromised.
• Same way, never take family issues or problems to work. This would seriously impact your work and is sure gonna leave your boss fuming and you would not like that.

Following a few simple tips and working on it would help you concentrate on work and spend quality time with your family too. It would also leave you with enough time to pursue your hobbies, catch up with buddies or enjoy your favourite sport.