Punch Out, Log off

Posted May 26th, 2009

I used to hate punching a time clock for work. Now I miss it.

I don’t miss the games. Our time was rounded to the nearest quarter hour so you’d always punch in seven minutes into the quarter hour and punch out eight minutes in to get your extra quarter hour a day. We would sit by the time clock waiting for it to be 4:52 so we could punch out and get counted as working until five.

Punching a clock makes you think of your time at the job differently. It reminds you that you’re only being paid for time that you are punched in. That’s what I miss.

I never hear the whistle Fred Flinstone hears at the end of the day. I’d love to slide down my dinosaur, punch out, and go home without thinking about my day job.

I love my day job but I don’t have as clean a separation between my life and my job as I’d like. Even when I’m doing something as simple as watching the NBA playoffs I’m catching up on blogs, checking in on Twitter, and filtering email.

That’s not healthy.

One of the reasons we created the Life Series was to encourage people to step away from their computer and immerse themselves in various things.

Punch out. Log off. Close your laptop. Wander away. Immerse yourself in thought, exercise, or a hobby. You can tweet about it tomorrow.

This post originally appeared in the Pragmatic Life blog.