The Art of Compartmentalizing Your Life
One day at work, I found myself with nothing to do. As a college student, this feeling was all too enticing. Getting a head start on my homework for the day sounded like a great use of this newfound free time. I pulled out my laptop to start on my endless stream of assignments, but just before I could start, a thought entered my head. I was at work, so I should work. I chose to ask a different supervisor that wasn’t my own if there was anything that I could help them with. I soon found myself with a task that would take up the rest of my workday.
It was a small thing, but it taught me a good lesson. I didn’t consider the impact this made on me until I got home and started to do my homework. I found that I felt more productive, and I was able to get everything done! By choosing to focus on work when I was at work, the stress from my school and personal life was kept at bay and unable to interfere with my productivity. Then when I got home, the stress from work didn’t interfere with the other things I had to do.
This principle is called “compartmentalizing”. It refers to the mental strategy by which individuals separate the many facets of their lives, emotions, thoughts, and experiences into distinct categories or compartments. Here are a few benefits that follow the implementation of this mental strategy.
1. Maintain focus: individuals are enabled to focus on one thing at a time without being distracted by unrelated thoughts and concerns.
2. Manage stress: compartmentalizing allows individuals to temporarily set aside other concerns in another area of their life. This prevents feeling overwhelmed and out of control.
3. Preserve relationships: compartmentalizing helps keep boundaries between different relationships by not allowing issues from one area of your life to spill into the lives of others. This contributes to healthier, more balanced relationships at home and at work.
4. Cope with trauma and adversity: this strategy can even be a helpful coping mechanism for dealing with difficult emotions and experiences. This practice enables an individual to mentally separate these experiences from everyday life and promotes a sense of normalcy.
Overall, this practice promotes balance in your life. It keeps all the tasks and responsibilities that compete for our attention and energy in their own proper place and time, allowing “all…things [to be] done in wisdom and order” (Mosiah 4:27). It allows an individual to dedicate their time and energy more fully to work and personal pursuits, reducing the risk of burnout and improving overall well-being by keeping the work-life balance in check. Mosiah 4:27 continues, “it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength…he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize…” So take control of your to-dos by compartmentalizing your life, and you will have the energy required to stay on top of your tasks.
Now here is a little warning: the line between compartmentalization and procrastination can often become blurred. Every aspect of our lives must work together. We must know when it is appropriate to compartmentalize and when it’s necessary to address underlying issues more directly. Like if something really distracts and inhibits you, it should be resolved as soon as possible. And always remember to never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved. Always make time for those who need you, and you will be blessed.