Time to Call it Quits By Debbie Williams of OrganizedTimes.com You would think that quitting work for the day would be a simple thing to do, since it's so hard to get started in the first place, right? But all too often, calling it quits for the day is something that many of us just can't do. Our workdays are getting longer, in spite of the techno-wizardry at our fingertips: cell phones, voicemail, email, and instant messaging. The workaholic of the 80s in a business suit and downtown corporate office has been replaced with a contractor in shorts and sandals working on a report pool-side. And then there's the issue of constant interruptions once you DO manage to leave the office, wherever it may be. You can run, but you cannot hide---with accessibility comes frustration and irritability. What's the answer to this problem? Is there a need to limit the hours of our workday, closing the door on works-in-progress until another day? The answer is yes if you need to eat, sleep or have any kind of life at all outside your virtual office. And managing time and the hours in each day, involves managing the people in your life as well as that list of "to do's" in your planner. Out to Lunch Whether you work in an office, at home or in the field, you need to take breaks and recharge your batteries. You're not going to be able to concentrate on closing a sale, writing a proposal, or crunching numbers in a sales projection if you forgot to eat lunch and sugar levels are scrambling your gray cells. Remember in grade school when they told us that breakfast is the most important meal of the day? There's something to be said for working on a full stomach, with lots of protein and carbohydrates to fuel your concentration. Keeping the levels of energy constant will enable you to carry on, but you can't do it on sheer will power. If you can't take a lunch break, then at least keep snacks near your work area for refueling. Tuck peanut butter crackers into the laptop case, stash a small cooler in your car with milk and sandwiches or brown bag it for a nutritious meal. Get up, stretch, walk around the room or take a nice walk. If your job is fast-paced, complete with busy phones and someone always wanting a little piece of your attention, then leave the building. Many people combine lunch breaks with their daily exercise, walking laps around the outside of the building, inside the parking garage or working out in the nearby gym. Eat a light lunch at your desk or in your car, then take off and let off some steam! Post Your Business Hours This sounds like an obvious tip for reducing stress and workload, but establishing work hours even if you work at home, sets boundaries and helps you pace yourself. Early in my virtual organizing business, I learned from others working at home that it was crucial to set business hours, not giving in to the temptation of being available 24/7. Checking email each time you hear the incoming message, responding to every instant message you receive, or running for the phone each time it rings is not conducive to stress management! Write down your business hours and post them on your bulletin board to remind you to have a life away from work. Whether you work in a hospital, from your car, or at home you will see a marked improvement in your stress level and efficiency once you learn to walk away. It's all too easy to get into a habit of working an hour late today, two hours late tomorrow, and then within a week you're working "overtime" as a rule rather than the exception. Entrepreneurs are probably the world's worst at this, which is pretty ironic when you think about it. The reason most of us start our own business is to be our own boss, set our own hours and answer to no one. But that's not really true -- we're answering to ourselves, and we have set our sites on a prize so high, so unattainable, that we cannot reach it. Gone Fishing You don't see this sign too often hanging from the door of a busy office building, or posted on a website. That's really a shame. Today we have more vacation days, more paid holidays, and shorter mandatory workdays than ever before. Yet we're too tired to enjoy the fruits of our labor, too tired to play with the toys we've bought with all that money we earned. Why not take a mental health day now and then? In school, you didn't think twice about playing hookey. Now that you're a grown-up, take a day off for fishing, surfing, shopping or reading. Don't make any plans at all and see where the day leads you. Or make reservations at a spa or your favorite restaurant, schedule it in your planner, and try not to cancel. Go ahead, you deserve it! For some reason, now that you're the more in charge, it's harder and harder to get away and take time for yourself. Your entire day is planned, from meetings to sales appointments, dinner with the in-laws to vacation with the family. Why not make an appointment with yourself? And don't just do this once and forget it, try it again-- you may find that you like it! Marriage counselors suggest that couples have a weekly date night, spending time alone together without kids, work or other distractions. It re-sparks the old flames that brought them together so long ago. So it is with stress management and getting organized. If you don't take care of yourself, you certainly can't effectively take care of others in your care. Office managers, school principals, nurse administrators, CEOs, and small business owners need TLC, but are usually the ones giving it rather than being on the receiving end. It's up to you to make an appointment with yourself on a routine basis. Start out weekly, then decrease to twice a month if something unexpectedly comes up - you can always get back in the swing of things next month. Be a tourist in your own hometown, or take a day trip. Do things on your "someday list" and live each week as if it were your last in that area of the country. Even if you have lived your entire life in the same town, there is always something new to see or experience. Things change, and you can too. In Summary Set your hours, take a day off, and keep a comfortable distance from your work. Reevaluate your schedule in two or three weeks, and then try to cut back even further. It's amazing what you can achieve when you know you have a deadline, even if it is self-imposed. And surprisingly enough, all that work will still be waiting for you in the morning! Also see: Guarding your time: How to say no Setting boundaries at work Advice for finding work/life balance How can a coach help a working mom like me? Debbie Williams is an organizing strategist and founder of the online organizing forum, OrganizedU.com. She is the author of Home Management 101, from Champion Press.