How to create a better office environment with furniture, supplies, and products

What’s up with the all caps? Well, this is important so I think people should pay attention even if it needs a little screaming to get it done.

I was going to post this later in the month but in case you noticed I was MIA yesterday so I figured now is as good as ever. You know that life where you spend all your time working and then you’re moving so you have to pack but that doesn’t stop the dishes from getting dirty and sure as heck doesn’t help get dinner on the table and there’s a child you had about six years ago that you want to spend time with and to top off this life you get an early fall illness of some sort that makes your head ache. You know that life. Wait, that’s my life.

Hence the MIA that was me yesterday.

Even though this is my life; I’m willing to bet your life looks a little something like it. Too busy, no breaks, not much fun because work is never-ending and chores get put aside or worse family time.

One organization is doing something about this hectic pace we lead as workers. That’s a good thing because when you get right down to it; it’s the work part that seems to overwhelm the rest of your life.

Take Back Your Time is a U.S./Canadian initiative that is striving to make a difference in how we think about time.

According to their stats:

• “We're putting in longer hours on the job now than we did in the 1950s, despite promises of a coming age of leisure before the year 2000.
• In fact, we're working more than medieval peasants did, and more than the citizens of any other industrial country.
• Mandatory overtime is at near record levels, in spite of a recession.
• On average, we work nearly nine full weeks (350 hours) LONGER per year than our peers in Western Europe do.
• Working Americans average a little over two weeks of vacation per year, while Europeans average five to six weeks. Many of us (including 37% of women earning less than $40,000 per year) get no paid vacation at all.”

Overworking causes major stress and a break in family life. How often do you take work home from the office? Are you paid to do that? Do you spend nights thinking about work instead of your kids or partner? And when was the last time you took a full week off and actually used it to relax.

It’s bad because we lose family time, me time, get sick from stress, lose our chances and drive to be members of the community (including voting, neighborhood pot-lucks, volunteering, and more), and what’s worse studies show that when work sucks people’s time to the max they resort to the ease of over packaged foods and conveniences that are unhealthy for bodies and the planet.

What you can do if work is draining you dry:

• On an initiative level you can join the campaign to pass Minimum Leave Protection, Family Bonding and Personal Well-Being Act of 2007. This amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act would make sure that employees get three weeks of vacation a year as long as they’ve been working at the same place for a year.
• Celebrate Take Back Your Time Day on October 24th
• Sign up for the Take Back Your Time newsletter to get involved and stay current.
• On a personal level you make the call to leave the work at the office each day. Go home and be home don’t be you at home but still on work duty. If you work at a home office stop working at some point and walk away. You may work at home but work is not where you should live.

To learn more about Take Back Your Time Day and figure out how to help yourself end the always working cycle visit Timeday.org. Seriously this is the best idea I’ve heard in a good long while. Something has to give – make sure it’s work and not you.

What do you think? Is work draining you?