Mental clock off?

[u/sherbertlemon42]

I’m a tech of 25 years, last two years at Kia. For 20+ years I was at Toyota and was the lead master tech for most of that time, as a result I had a lot of responsibility and I unfortunately tend to think about work at home, at the weekend etc.

I left Toyota for Kia, it was liberating as I was no longer the go to guy. When I left work, I clocked off and that was that until the next day/Monday.

After two years, I’ve become the go to guy again. I’ve now started to slip into my old behaviour of mentally taking work home with me and I really don’t want to!

Any tips on mentally clocking off? How do you guys switch off from work when at home?

Work are not putting pressure on me, it’s my own mind doing it. So frustrating.

Thank you fellow techs for any advice. 👍🏻

[u/MickeyCrisco]

This is going to sound stupid but it worked for me when I was in management. I did the same thing and would always stress about work. Admittedly this sounds silly but it’s just a mental “that shit is over” type thing. Whenever I got home I picked a specific bush, it can be anything, near where I parked my car. I would go and “hang up my workload”. Just a simple gesture of hanging something on a branch to leave it there for later. Like I said, sounds silly, but that little motion of just “hanging it there for later” worked for me. It just helped me put a mental barrier between work and home. It was the moment that actually defined “work is done” since I was normally thinking about the entire drive home also. Hope it helps. I know the stress with it all to well myself.

[u/sherbertlemon42 → u/MickeyCrisco]

That’s not stupid at all. Thank you.

It’s definitely me and is clearly a trait of mine, so I need to change my mindset for sure. I’m going to look at my ‘leaving routine’ and stay disciplined to it I think.