There is no need for your to feel guilty for leaving work on time

You wanted to leave on time, but then you pause and look around, seeing people still hard at work, typing furiously, on phone calls, and generally looking very busy and important.

Would you get up and face the looks of resentful coworkers, the guilt of leaving them to work as you swan out of the door? Or do you swallow down your desperate wish to run out, find some other work to do, and work past your hours just to avoid the awkwardness?

The truth is, both options are pretty sh*t.

We should not be making a show of working overtime and filling our after-work hours with stuff we could easily do tomorrow between the hours of nine ’til five. We shouldn’t be feeling guilty for leaving at the time our contracts state we’re allowed to walk out and powering on past our working hours shouldn’t be the norm. It’s not healthy, and it needs to stop.

Yes I understand working after-hours when you genuinely haven’t finished what you’re doing. I get the occasional late night in the office when you’re working on a big project or find yourself in a particularly busy period.

Occasionally leaving work late for a valid reason is fine.

What is not fine, though, is feeling racked with guilt for not working late or sticking around the office just to prove that you’re really dedicated to your work or refusing to leave on time because it ‘feels’ weird.

Well You shouldn’t feel guilty for leaving work at the time when your contract says you can, because, well, your contract says you can leave at that time. And you’re not doing anything wrong by following the rules laid out in your job’s agreement.

And leaving on time doesn’t mean you’re not committed to your job, you’re lazy, or you hate everyone in your office and can’t wait to get away from them, it only means you’ve got a life outside of work. And considering that stress rates are higher than ever, that’s a very important thing.

You cannot be the best possible version of yourself – and, therefore, the best possible worker you can be – if you aren’t taking proper time away from your desk. For the same reason we have lunch breaks, our work days aren’t 24 hours long because employers know that eight hours or so is really as much time as a human can stay focused on something (with intermittent breaks, obviously) without losing the will to do anything ever again.

We’re supposed to leave on time so that we can go home, eat, exercise, relax, because we’re not supposed to be all-work machines. We’re people, and part of our human needs is having time that doesn’t belong to the people and places we work for.

We need that for our physical and mental health. We need it so we can maintain relationships, and have interests other than the work, and so we can look after ourselves and to have that, we need to leave work on time.

I get the guilt and worry when it comes to standing up from your desk at five on the dot.

You feel like you’re ditching the office and leaving other people to do work that needs to be done. You worry that your coworkers and boss will think you’re lazy, uncommitted, and that you aren’t as good at your job as the people that are sticking around late.

You tell yourself there’s still work to do. So you stay late, even when you don’t need to, especially when you don’t want to, and prioritise your work over yourself.

You need to break out of this way of thinking.

The only way to make leaving work on time stop feeling weird? To start leaving work on time.

You need to remind yourself that it’s more important to work better than to work longer. You need to remember that there’s no way you can be creative, great at solving problems, and generally brilliant if you’re overworked and exhausted. The quality of the work you produce is more important than the amount of time you spend at your desk.

That’s an attitude employers need to get on board with, obviously.

All of this reframing is pointless if you’ve got an employer that genuinely only values those who stay late and work themselves to the point of exhaustion. There’s a lot to be done when it comes to making hours more flexible and working environments better.

But when the guilt is internal (which it all too often is), that’s something you can sort out.

You need to remember that yes, there’s always more work that could be done. But it’s never-ending. If you stayed behind until absolutely everything is complete, you wouldn’t bother going home at all.

When you start leaving work on time regularly, working late is no longer an accepted norm.

You’ll notice that people aren’t turning to look at you in horror as you stand up from your deskchair, that no one treats you any differently the next day, and that your boss isn’t planning to fire you the next day.

Because they know – as you know – that leaving on time should be expected.

And if you set the example, you’re contributing to a workplace culture where it’s entirely okay to leave on time and have a life outside of work, where people don’t feel shamed into skulking out at 5.40 when they finished their work an hour ago.

Which is a brilliant thing.

Stay late on those occasions that you need to. Leave on time when there’s really no need to stick around. And stop feeling guilty for doing it.