How do you manage life stress when you’re on the clock?

Question

I hve friends who just compartmentalize things and im not someone who can do that. If something is happening in my personal life, itll bleed into my work life if its super stressful. Loss of a loved one, spouse loses a job and is freaking out, kids running you up a wall... How do you guys keep things separate so your performance doesnt dip? Are you just faking it until things get resolved?

Barbatos · Accepted Answer

My wife and I recently lost our pregnancy quite late (20 weeks) and we were expecting two boys. My manager gave me 9 paid working days off without question which helped immediately with the MENTAL aspect of it. I instantly felt like the company had my best interest at heart. But maybe also, I feel like this question is very applicable because some days after I returned, I felt fine and my thoughts were numb, and other days I couldn’t focus at all. I struggle with emotional compartmentalization, and so there were days where I’d move meetings so I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. There were days I’d say I was sick and needed a day and my manager knew without it being said. But at the end of the day, I managed the stress of not underperforming by reminding myself that if my company is this understanding, then I should also make sure that I can give them 100% when I am working, even if that 100% isn’t the same as what it would have been 3 months prior.

Faking it is sometimes necessary, but most will see through it pretty quickly.

monkE · Answer

I'm so sorry for your loss. My advice would be to put your mental health and physical well being first. As much as you need a paycheck, without those two there isn't much point. I don't like to use the word always, but always put yourself first. I like to refer back to the airlines' safety instructions. Put your own oxygen mask on before you help anyone else. Your management will see that something is off, and you might have someone point out to you that you're performance slipped. You do not need to go into your personal life, but I think it would be reasonable to say you have some personal issue you're working through. You could look into paid family leave and take some time off, you're protected by law to be able to take time off to take care of yourself. Work will always be there, if you're worried about performance to not let your team down, they'll understand. If you're worried about performance to not get fired, maybe it's not the right company then? If it's an internal feeling that you don't want to slip, don't be so hard on yourself. The last thing I can recommend is for you to read about the different stages of grieving, as cliche as it is, time heals all wounds. My wife and I struggled with infertility, we were trying to adopt. We had a foster son who was 5 months old when he came into our lives. He was going to be up for adoption, and we were going to adopt him. Fast forward 9 months, and the county decided he's going back to his birth mom. I just started a new job when the reality of him being taken from our house became an actual reality. I didn't go into details with my management, but I told them there's something at home in dealing with. No one tried to pry it out of me. Eventually, once I grieved this, I was able to let some know why I wasn't laser focused, everyone was supportive. Also, therapy helps, hang in there. Even though it doesn't seem this way, there are better days ahead.

adorable · Answer

Mentally, you can force yourself to perform for a few months. Longer than that, performance, focus, drive will suffer because you're beat up mentally. That leads into the usual outlets - kicking the pup, screaming at the wife, ignoring the boss and deadlines, etc - until you either get over the issues, you get fired, or you just quit and escape to some other country/lifestyle/etc until you process through things....which may take years and years. Diaries, counseling, friends, etc can help, but unfortunately, there's no definitive timeline for grief and overcoming personal issues. A boss that understands and provides flexibility can help, but he'll still fire you at some point in your pathos because his job isn't babysitting your problems, but rather, to keep the company that's paying everyone else's paycheck going.

lastCoyotes · Answer

I personally believe that compartmentalizing the two apart isn't entirely healthy, or possible! I believe it's extremely case-by-case, but I believe that reassuring yourself that you will be able to handle things regarding your personal life outside of work is important. Confidence in yourself that it'll be resolved, even if it isn't right away is important to hold.

I talked to my therapist at the time about this phenomenon and talked about methods or tools I could utilize to manage this balance, and she taught me a lot about the idea of "distress tolerance." It's something that you can build up over time, and it's part of this new thought called "Dialectical behavior therapy." I am no therapist or psychologist, but how I utilized it was to understand what was rationally in front of me that I could deal with right in front of me, acceptance that the stress in my life is happening and will pass, and to accept that your feelings are intense and difficult, but you are able to regulate them and reorient your strategies to handle what causes them as they come and go.

With this mode of thinking, I "think about it later" but when it's more appropriate. In the end, that paradoxically feels like compartmentalizing, but the reason why you may think about it a lot during work is that you feel like you don't have the time to handle it unless it's immediate.

Take a deep breath, write some small steps down on how you can help the situation or relax yourself, and find little things to feel a sense of gratitude or accomplishment in the midst of the stress! Hang in there.

2jNon2a · Answer

whenever im bothered by something outside of work, i try to deal with it outside of work. ig you can call that compartmentalizing but i see it more as, confronting the problem. like when i was going through some family issues and getting distracted with phone calls and stuff from relatives, i would throw my phone on the other side of the room and just ignore it until i was done doing my tasks. like trying to address the emotional stuff while also trying to logically process code wasn't going to work. i just focsed this block of time here, that block there, and if i noticed i was drifting back to the not so great places, i'd get up and try to move my body around. a lof of what makes stress that much harder to deal with at work is because of us sitting all day and storing that negative, sad, etc energy in our bodies.

How do you manage life stress when you’re on the clock?

About

Tech

Members