Do you find yourself constantly talking about work when asked: How are you? How do you relate to your work? Are you getting too consumed with what you do, with your clients, with the responsibilities you have even when you are not at work?

Do you feel like you have to talk about your work with friends, family, even with people you hardly know on the streets when asked: ”how are you doing/how are you/what’s going on with your life?”

Last month while on a lunch with a friend that lives abroad, and that I haven’t seen in the last 5 years I struggled feeling comfortable and not bored, while I was initially very excited to catch up on what’s going on with her, how’s life abroad, is she happy, healthy, in love etc…

I think that the only point of our conversation revolved around work. When I asked: ‘’ How is she doing, what’s going on in her life’’, she constantly gushed about her career, how successful she is, about her work responsibilities, her projects, her colleagues, she even talked about her clients. Feeling too enthusiastic about what she does for a living she forgot that we haven’t seen each other more than 5 years.

That had me thinking:’’ is that the only thing we had to talk about? Why do we always relate first to our career and work and not to our values, feelings and personal life? Why do we carry the burden of our work in our everyday life , why is it so difficult for us to detach from our work responsibilities in our free time, and forget about them even for a while, and focus on the present situation that we are in, focus on our feelings, friends, a loved one, or focus on our well being instead?

Last Friday while walking on the street I saw a friend from college. When I asked: ‘’ How is he doing, he also gushed that he’s well, that he’s working as a programmer in a company, and that he has big responsibilities because he works for foreign clients. He even invited me for a coffee next week in order for us to catch us on our lives, but he wrote me a message later this week that he’s too busy with his work and he postponed it for next week.

It seems like everywhere we go, everyone is too consumed with the work they do, even I find myself doing that most of the time. Maybe this lifestyle is due to the dynamic society we live in, maybe we are all caught up in the same scheme and without thinking, we forget about our-self and think about our work-related responsibilities first.

When I feel like I want to be stress-free while at home, I put myself in the present situation and think about the things I could do to make my life happier and fulfilled.

In order to be more productive at work, we should not force it to become the main focus of our lives- and that’s called establishing a work-life balance in life. If we can distance ourselves from our work physically and emotionally we can feel more stress-free. The more stress–free we feel, the more productive we can be in life, at work, and in our relationships.



How to detach ourselves from our work?



Maybe it sounds easy while said – but not in practice, but the thing you should focus on is the present situation. While on work–focus on your work, maybe a little more at home, but don’t forget to focus on yourself, to focus on the people you are with, focus on your family, focus on your present surroundings and make every single moment of your free time great and relaxed.

You will be more productive in every field in life if you put yourself in the present!