Leave Work At Work: The Power of Intentional Transitions

Sara Mueller

Jul 27

If you're like a lot of leaders I work with, your spouse knows almost as much about the annoying clients or staff drama you deal with every day as you do. It's hard to separate work from home – especially when work is extra stressful. So we often unload on our partners because we need someone to vent to.

I get it; I find myself ruminating on frustrations or conversations I wish would have gone a different way too… often long into dinnertime when I should be relishing my sons ' silly school stories or connecting intimately with my husband in those tiny cracks of time between navigating our full, blessed lives.

One of the keys to success and having high emotional intelligence is, of course, being mindful and focusing your finite time on "doing only one." This means when it's work time, you put your head down and work. When it's exercise time, you shut off phone notifications and get your sweat on. When it's time to meditate or pray or fill your cup, you do just this, instead of sending off a quick email or calling a friend. This "doing only one" allows us to give our 100 percent to that bucket of our life, and it keeps us from multi-tasking, which data from the University of London says "makes you dumber than being stoned."

I'm sure you can get behind this idea. It makes sense to focus your focus, right? What's harder is actually implementing this "do only one" concept or magically turning off your work brain when you walk into your family's kitchen at night.

Here are some tricks that make it easier:

1. Create An Intentional Transition

It's helpful to make an intentional transition from work to home, client call to team meeting, or spouse discussion to toddler playtime. A transition can be as simple as taking three deep breaths with the intention to leave what just was and get present for what is. It might be a physical action like standing up from your desk, walking in a circle, and sitting back down. It might be a phrase you repeat like, "Swipe away" as you imagine swiping all the open apps off your phone to leave a high-functioning phone that isn't bogged down by unnecessary apps operating in the background.

Just like dimming the lights in the evening prepares our brain for bed or sitting on your meditation cushion prepares your mind for focus, as you continue carrying out your chosen transition your brain will support the process more and more.

2. Make Disconnecting Easy (er)

If it's hard for you to leave work at work, begin by putting some boundaries in place for how often you check in with work (i.e. how often you read your work email or texts), as these will quickly pull you back in. Start small at first by putting your phone in your backseat so you can't read work emails while at stoplights on your drive home. Or leaving your phone in your bedroom during dinner. Or putting your phone on airplane mode at 8pm. Or not taking your phone to the bathroom with you at work. When you create dedicated disconnected time, your brain has a chance to adjust to the non-constant dopamine hit you get every time an email or notification comes in. This will be hard at first as you break the habit and dopamine addiction, but you'll be able to create longer pockets of time that allow you to be present with your family or whatever's in front of you – AND you'll find yourself more alert and creative as your brain has a chance to refresh.

Discipline and willpower only get me so far. I have to create boundaries with myself that set me up for success, like charging my phone in the bathroom instead of on my nightstand, or deleting all social media apps from my phone after I post something so I don't get sucked back in. What can you do to make disconnecting a no-brainer?

3. Have An Outlet For Stress, Anger & Anxiety

If your stress outlet is venting to your partner, well, then, that's where you will continue funneling all your stress towards. If, instead, you commit to working out daily or journaling or meeting with your success coach or taking a quick walk at lunchtime, these new habits will be your outlet. Then you can save the special moments you have with your partner for true intimacy-building conversations.

Pick one of these and give it a try, then let me know how it goes.

Routing for your presence in all that matters in your life.

Love and success,
Your coach,
Sara