Workaholism is prevalent in our society but people don’t even realize it. Workaholism is a compulsive obsession with working endlessly – that’s a short working definition. However, workaholism isn’t always clear-cut apparent and can oft time be misconstrued for just dedication or even work ethic. The new age of the internet of things and social media has led to increased incidences of workaholism. This is because it’s now easy to work from virtually anywhere and at any time other than your usual workplace and work hours. Interestingly, people tend to regard workaholism as a problem but in essence, it’s merely a telling sign or symptom of numerous underlying actual problems. Let’s look at 3 strategies one can use to overcome workaholism, but before that:
A Quick Guide On Diagnosing Workaholism
There are many things you can frankly assess yourself on that can give you indications on whether or not you’re a workaholic. If you are always attending to your phone in response to or in anticipation of work-related messages chances are you’re one. If your time outside formal working hours is just an extension of work hours then you could be one. If weekends, holidays, or any other formal breaks from work are spent solely on work then you could be a workaholic. If you prioritize your work at the expense of sleeping time, resting time, leisure time, family time and so on; chances are you’re one. If you find yourself musing about work even in its absence then you’re definitely addicted to work. So how can you combat workaholism? Let’s talk:
Renewal Of The Mind
This is the first step; you can never address an issue if you don’t, first of all, acknowledge that it has to be addressed. I mentioned some things to look at in your quest to diagnose if you are a workaholic or not. If you check those things closely they are replete with regular feedback that can make it dawn upon you that something must change. If you’re not getting enough sleep and rest your body will let you know. If you are neglecting family time and other important relationships, the victims of your neglect will let you know. Basically, this is the point of departure; acknowledge things aren’t well and that certain changes are necessary.
Objective Scheduling
This is obviously an area of concern because workaholism entails the placement of work tasks in time slots that are meant for other things. The first port of call is to confine work to formal working hours. This connotes setting up unequivocal boundaries between work time and time for other pertinent things. Some of you might be employers or self-employed and that means you’re highly susceptible to neglecting this principle. However, I encourage that you must stipulate formal working hours for yourself. Notice I said ‘objective’ for a reason – this means your time management must be undistorted by emotion or personal bias. The International Labour Organization stipulates 48 hours of working every week with not more than 8 hours per day. This is a standard borne out of factoring in of many inclusive attributes – I believe that should be any person’s standard, self-employed, employee or employer. The other issue here is to be focused during work hours so that work doesn’t end up spilling over. Being distracted and procrastinating can result in shoddy work that might need to be redone. This can also culminate in bouts of pressure to meet looming deadlines.
Delegation And Seeking Help
Workaholism is also definitely a function of biting off more than you can chew. You’re most likely going to find a convergence of individualism, micromanagement and poor delegation in workaholics. Many times workaholics are who they are because they don’t delegate some tasks, they prefer to do everything alone and without any assistance. This can be caused by one’s feeling of being loftier than others and not believing that others can lighten your workload. Therefore when you feel overwhelmed please do delegate or seek help on completing your tasks. At times workaholism can be caused by endeavouring to complete a task involving skills you don’t wield. Delegate and seek help whenever necessary to ease your work pressure and to ensure work remains confined to work hours.
I’ve just discussed 3 strategies and I have taken time to enunciate them at length. This is because they entail a lot of vantage points i.e. you can employ many approaches in applying them if you’re a workaholic. Each strategy is mainly tied to your mindset thus you must adopt firm mental stamina. If you can’t develop a working mindset for each strategy it’ll be hard for you to make it work. You must condition your mind from the very first step you take in combating workaholism.
This is a topical issue that must be taken seriously otherwise you might acknowledge the issue when it’s now at an advanced stage. You can actually ruin relationships and even develop terminal illnesses if you neglect workaholism – that’s how serious it can get. So make the smart decision to check if you aren’t a workaholic and if you’re, do something about it starting today. These 3 strategies are not nearly as exhaustive because this is a very broad field but I’m confident they will redefine your work life.
