This question was submitted as part of Limeade Summer Reading Club where the group is reading Bring Work to Life! and (virtually) discussing work-life. Here’s the detail:

My personal life has recently interfered with my work life. How can I better structure my time so my performance doesn’t start slipping?

 First of all, congratulations on recognizing the problem and seeking to correct it. You’re not alone in facing this challenge. 43% of Americans report that their personal lives interfere with their jobs[i].

If you’ve caught onto this problem before it has affected your work performance, excellent. You have time to quickly turn things around. If your work performance has already suffered, you’ll want to be sure and own and acknowledge the decline in your performance with your boss and your team. Be open, be honest, apologize, and communicate that you’ll be correcting the issue.

From now on, here are some suggestions in order to keep personal obligations from intruding on your work

• Set clear boundaries with yourself. Agree with yourself that you won’t make personal phone calls or exchange personal emails during work hours, and that you’ll resist checking social media like Twitter or Facebook except before or after work. Set small goals and hold yourself accountable to this new discipline one day at a time.
• When you’re at home and on your personal time, get personal things done. Mange tasks effectively so that you get them accomplished and they won’t require your attention during the work day.
• In addition, be present and focused on personal when you’re on your personal time, so  you’ve satisfied needs for personal focus as much as possible and will be less likely to be distracted during the work day.
• Get support from others, as well. You’ll be less distracted to deal with the personal while you’re working if you have support on the personal side. Don’t be afraid to ask for help from others.
• Depending on the amount of vacation you receive and your company’s vacation policies, you might also consider taking one day of vacation per month. During that day, you can take care of phone calls, doctor appointments, and the like.
• You might also consider establishing a relationship with a trusted teammate who can check in with you and with whom you can communicate openly as a coach and safe haven support if you struggle with staying disciplined to this new approach.

With regard to your work performance, do everything you can to perform to the highest possible level of excellence. Get things done on time. Get things done with high levels of quality. Take initiative and go above and beyond. Offer to help teammates. In addition, build strong relationships with teammates and your work team leader. Sometimes, personal life intrudes on work-life because people feel like work is intruding on personal life and then they make up for this intrusion during the work day. For this reason, it’s also helpful to be planful about boundaries on the home side as well. Ensure that you’re at efficient as possible about getting your work done while you’re at work. This will help reduce the likelihood that you have to take work home. In addition, get really good at setting reasonable expectations for your work and the assignments that come your way.

Once you’ve made positive changes to ensure the appropriate boundary between personal and work life, check in with yourself once a month to be sure you’re sticking with your commitments. In addition, set up a process where you can obtain ongoing feedback from your leader and/or teammates.

[i] For more on this and other aspects of stress and spillover, check out Chapter 2 of Bring Work to Life by Bringing Life to Work: A Guide for Leaders and Organizations.