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by Safiyyah Boolay-Jappie

Gone are the days when we clocked into our work day in the morning and clocked into the rest of our lives in the late afternoon. There was a clear separation between home life and work life and we could attend to the different parts of our lives without it being contaminated by the other parts of our lives. Where we were was where we were and we were able to give it our full attention.

Over the past 15 years technology has made time and space fluid, and since the lockdown it’s become commonplace to hear expressions like ‘I have my baby in the boardroom and my boss is intruding in my bedroom’. We are no longer simply multi-tasking. We are now multi-living, and there are no indications that it will slow down or self-correct.

Time and space has collapsed in a way that is undesirable for most of us and everything feels out of place, or even misplaced. We are having to be ‘on’ and in ‘uptime’ like never before. As a result, mental fatigue is our constant companion and it is a dark shadow in our relationships, our work, our creativity, and every aspect of our lives.

Declare an end to your day, even when you have incomplete tasks

A small shift we can institutionalise is to call and end to the work day. A small but significant clocking out ritual that signifies to your brain, and body and to your boss, colleagues and customers that the working day has ended for you. That you are offline. That the emails, WhatsApp messages and all other connectivity tools are on ice so that you can clear your head, replenish your energy and connect with the treasures of your heart, body and soul. Those outstanding tasks will be there in the morning, and maybe over time, you’ll realise how completely irrelevant and non-essential some of them actually are.

Prioritisation requires that we are comfortable with incompletions and missed opportunities, and that we become strategic about who, when and how we delight and who, when and how we disappoint. Like my daddy always says, “you can please some of the people some of the time, but you simply cannot please all of the people all of the time”.

When you prioritise, prioritise the things that help you to recharge, replenish and restore all the bits and pieces of you that become scattered and depleted so that you are able to return to your work with creativity and gusto!

Check out my FB Group, Living and Leading Wholeheartedly where the objective is to explore ways to thrive and to create success on your terms without the high costs of burnout.

Safiyyah Boolay-Jappie is a life coach, based in South Africa. She helps high achieving, ambitious women to create impactful careers without sacrificing their well-being, themselves, their relationships, and quality of life. She helps women to beat burnout and to thrive. Having worked in the corporate world for 20 years, most of these in complex leadership roles whilst raising two children, she understands the demands being juggled by professional women, both in their professional and personal lives. Today, she wants to share those learnings with other women through her personal coaching and training.

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