If you really love your job, then learn to give it some space.

I love my partner. She’s really great. I mean, of course she is, otherwise we wouldn’t still be together after five years. Our anniversary (helpfully) coincides with Valentine’s Day. Most years, we visit an amazing restaurant. This year obviously was different. In the morning, we drank mimosas and exchanged gifts. In the evening, we attempted not to mess up a Jason Atherton meal kit. In between, we parted ways. She retired to the lounge to play Genshin Impact, and I went to the study to resurrect my childhood via Roller Coaster Tycoon. We arranged a set time in the evening to begin dinner together.

All relationships – including the ones we have with our jobs - need an element of space. A lot has been written recently about the rise of burnout as a consequence of remote working. It is easier than ever before to blur the lines between work and play, ignoring the importance of disconnecting and even if we do, always remaining in reach through mobile devices. It is not just your pets or your partner that you can share your sofa with these days.

The ramifications of not giving your job appropriate space make for grim reading. Perhaps more serious of all is the ever-rising prevalence of stress, for many, above already intolerable levels. With many jobs insecure – or at least perceived by their incumbents as such – it is all too easy for employees to grind away in the belief that should the axe fall, quantity over quality will prevail. Managing stress – and the consequences if it is ignored – is a whole different discussion, so let us just leave it at lose-lose and move on. A risk of spending too much time with a loved one is seeing the relationship tire itself out, creepingly and invisibly so. Similarly, negative feelings at work, like the virus, can mutate. They can start with inward eyerolls and can evolve to noticeable actions such as saying things that are not meant, perhaps on a call, or to a colleague.

Burnout can be one element of a break in the psychological contract, essentially an unenforceable but inferred or expected ‘equilibrium’ or mutual trust between the employer and employee. Traditionally, the concept was decidedly quid pro quo but has become increasingly nuanced in recent years even more so today where the boundaries of work are blurred, and the notion of a ‘career’ has taken on new forms and meaning.

The concept of a psychological contract can be ported over to your personal life. Think about some of your closest personal relationships. Psychological contract ‘clauses’ could range from dealbreakers, such as being faithful to one another, to minor, such as “I’ll let you have some peaceful time on Genshin Impact if you let me get on and build a kick-ass theme park in the study”. Too much give or take either way could have repercussions to the equilibrium of the relationship, ranging from eye-rolling moments, through full-blown arguments, to ultimately breaking up.

HR leaders are charged with sustaining the psychological contract but are often chastised for doing so under the guise of driving sickness levels down or productivity up. I’m not going to lie to you; that’s kind of true, as like many leaders, we have to watch our numbers. But the piece which unlocks the puzzle is for me, is to prevent ‘break-ups’. If one way of doing this is to promote a healthy work-life balance, then this involves keeping the love employees (hopefully) have for their jobs healthy and in check. Sadly, in the age of remote working, this is easier said than done, and employees should feel happy to approach their manager if they feel there is more take than give. As always – and again, this is common to any relationship – the best fixes are ones which are self-actualised. Here are some ideas remote workers, to ensuring the love of their job is never lost:

If possible, have a work room, not a workspace.

If you have the space to do so, confining your office area to a separate room will help you define boundaries between work and home life.

Pomodoro… again.

It might be over-peddled and a little hackneyed, but by jingo it works. Uninterrupted work for around twenty-five minutes, followed by a ten-minute break when you should get up, get mobile and get away from your work area. Tried and tested. There’s a great article on how to maximise its usage here.

Make time not for lunch, but for a lunch activity.

Scheduling lunchtime may not be enough to deter you from powering through. Setting an activity in your diary, such as “Lunch walk” or “Lunch TV” will not only give you an excuse to pull you away from the desk, but – assuming you have a shared calendar – deter overzealous managers from plugging in meetings or disturbing you while you’re on your break.

Celebrate the end of the working day.

Setting something fun to do at the end of your working day is a great way to switch off from work. As you probably know by now, I love gaming. My working day ends at half past five. Less than five minutes’ minute later, I am up and happily racing away on Gran Turismo.

If you’re out of office, you’re Out Of Office .

Setting automatic replies to your work emails each evening can not only feel satisfyingly symbolic, it also sets an expectation and precedent by informing colleagues that it will be your pleasure to “respond to their email tomorrow”.

Safety in numbers .

Something that works well for me is to synchronise my day’s work with my other half. This way, we motivate each other when we’re working and can pull away from work with the help of each other. In practice, this usually means that one of us stops working (for example, to watch a movie or to make food) thus ‘inspiring’ the other one of us to do the same. Housemates or, a friend (as soon as we are allowed to meet them) can also be great partners in crime.

Image via Frankieleon on Flickr .