Those of you who have been reading my blog may have already read my entry on Creeps at Work, but this entry is about the opposite...when work creeps into your private time. It's a growing problem these days, no matter what field you work in. Managers are trying to do more with less, and the more blood (work) they can squeeze out of the turnip (you), then the more they will keep squeezing. Rest assured there is no shortage of work to go around these days.
I made up the term "Work Creep" after becoming familiar with a Software Development Life Cycle term called Scope Creep. For those of you who do not know, scope changes can make a software design project larger or smaller. Scope changes can affect the timeline of the project and the cost of the project. These changes in scope are more commonly referred by the term scope creep. In the same way, work creep can be thought of as something similar. Work creep can make your workload smaller or larger, without any increase in pay or decrease in days off from work. Work creep can affect the timeline of your own personal life as in, your bed time, meal times, but in the end, it affects how much work you are responsible for at your office at the end of the day.
As babies, we cry when we don't get our basic needs: sleep, food, potty and shelter. As humans, we don't outgrow these needs. We have an instinct to cry for these things as a child because not to do so would put us at an evolutionary disadvantage to survive. As adults, you still need the same things, but I wouldn't try crying about it. Instead I have a few other suggestions.
After spending nearly 10 years at one job, I've learned to practice a number of tactics to keep the work from infiltrating my personal time without being looked upon as a "passer of the buck". Often my tactics work. I'd like to share with you what I've learned.
1) Practice saying, "No," BUT always spin your decision to avoid work after hours in a way that benefits the company. Nobody needs to know your personal business, but I’d be willing to bet if you dig in to what’s being asked of you, you’ll find out someone else forgot to do something in time. For example, your boss asks you to work after-hours to complete a report at the last minute. Perhaps you could find out exactly what information she needs from the report and provide that component during business hours, then complete the rest of the report the next day? I think you’ll be surprised how willing people will be to work with you if you just find out what they really need.
2) Don't make yourself easily available for work after hours. Think about the guy on Office Space who tries to sneak out of the office on Friday afternoon. I mean, you probably don't want to make it THAT obvious, but DO make it more work for someone to ASK you to do extra work than it takes to actually get the work done. If you have a calendar that others can view your Free/Busy data from, then require folks to schedule time with you. If they ask why, just remind them that that is the best way to make sure you can address their concern.
4) SET BOUNDARIES - this goes for personal as well as work life. If you don't know what your boundary issues are, you should really stop and think about how much personal processing space and down time you need to take care of your life and those you love and NOT the other way around. Don't regularly agree to do work inside your boundary space. Others are going to take the lead from what you say YES to. If you find yourself saying, “No, it’s OK,” a lot then that’s a red flag that it is probably not.
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