There will be many out there who will disagree with the advice I’m about to give. But, it’s my lived experience and what I have learned through some very hard lessons. In particular, I’ve learned these lessons this past year.

Many will argue you need a good work/life balance. That is not a concept I completely embraced. In the past, I felt that if you have a job from which you get personal fulfillment, there is no rub between work and life. Then, I got harder and harder job positions, from which I still got something out of, such as career development and growth.

Then the pandemic hit, and I have since had a complete overhaul of my life. I suffered personal losses and health setbacks. I then had to learn I needed to compartmentalize because I had to keep on going. Too much depended on me. But I couldn’t let one bad event impact other life components. I couldn’t let a set of bad actors have an impact across my life. I had to learn to section off and box things off. It doesn’t mean that when I get home, I don’t complete some work activities. But I certainly don’t answer work calls while in the bath or shower. Yes, I used to do that. Not anymore.

I mentally box things off. It is not easy to do so. But people have recently noted I seem better. More like my old chipper self. Comparmentalize!