Everyone hears about the guy who works 16 hours per day 7 days per week. He never does anything but work and sleep. No vacations and no breaks. In modern society there are many people in this scenario and others like it. It doesn’t mean that you are any better at your job or that your more dedicated. It simply means you have no life!

The truth is that working this hard will actually decrease your productivity and eventually cause you to go into burnout mode. This will lead you to a miserable end. It will begin to effect your relationships, family, home life, hobbies, and friendships. Here is 10 great tips to get you going in the right direction.

1. Make sure you take enough time to rest. If you don’t spend enough time winding time the effects will become accumulative. The best way to do this is to allocate enough time to unwind and make sure you get plenty of sleep at night.
2. Get disconnected! Have some time set aside with your phone off, the internet off, emails off, text messages off, etc. Disconnect from the modern world. Keep communication to a bare minimum and really just enjoy yourself without all the modern clutter.
3. Set a cut off time and define clear boundaries. If you set your cut off time for work to 4pm stop right at 4 on the dot and don’t touch it again until the next day. Define some clear boundaries from work and home life and stick with them. Don’t merge the two together.
4. Set long term and short term goals outside of work. Take the time to set and write down some short and long term goals that don’t involve your work. Write them down and read them every chance you get. Setting long term goals will help direct your focus away from work and work stress and get you going in the right direction with your personal goals.
5. Get healthy and eat healthy. One of the most important steps in getting away from all the work is to find things to do in your spare time to fill the void. Any hobby that benefits you will work great. Start with getting healthier by working out and eating healthy and go from there.
6. Become more social. Find new friends and hang out with old ones. Take invites to go places and find more social events to attend. Get a personal and social life to help pull you away from all the work.
7. If you feel overworked the chances are you probably are. Listen to the way you feel and notice when you feel your stress moving up. Your body know whats best for you. Learn to trust it and when you feel overworked take a break
8. Don’t take your work so serious. Unless you are in the profession where lives count, you shouldn’t take your work so serious. You will only get more worked up. Think “it’s just a job” and adopt that mentality.
9. Get some new hobbies and spend time on your current ones. Hobbies are great. Everyone needs a few good ones that they enjoy doing. Spend some time working on them and you will feel your work stress diminish.
10. Learn work-home balance. You can’t just quit your job and do nothing. But you can learn to keep things in balance. Follow the other 9 tips above and you will find the right balance for you work-home life.

Remember longer hours does not make you a harder worker. The more breaks you take the more refreshed and better prepared you will be to get in there and make a difference. Focus your attention and energies away from work once you reach the cutoff point and really start enjoying your life. You can do this. Good luck!