Do you tend to work more than you should do?
If yes, this may be because your identity in your head is defined by the work you do.
Or you can think you need to work long hours to make the money you need to.
You can tackle this situation with a three-pronged approach.
One, raise your prices if you do client work.
Or get a higher-paying job that respects boundaries. There are jobs like that you just need to invest energy to find them.
Two, find something interesting to do, that is not work-related.
Cultivate new interests and purpose hobbies that you enjoyed at one point before you started working yourself to death.
Three, become efficient and learn to do more in a limited time.
The simplest way to do this is to make a to-do list the night before. Put no more than 6 items on it. Next to each item, write the approximate time it’ll take you to do it.
If you do all your work yourself and have no one to delegate work to, and you do an 8-hour day, then make sure that the total time you list next to each to-do does not exceed 5 hours. Because when we say 8-hour workday, we don’t work for all of those hours.
Now, number those 6 to-dos in order of importance from 1 to 6. The next day, start with an item that you listed number 1 and do not look at 2 to 6 until you finish 1. This is to make sure that you are not getting in and out of tasks which is a big-time waster and makes it hard to focus.
With this approach, you’ll get a lot more done in limited hours.
And once you are done, if anything else comes up, don’t just add it to your to-do list for today.
This is how you train yourself to set boundaries and also set the right expectations for those who work with you.
Do this and you’ll thank yourself later.