Leave Your Work at the Office

Of those of you who work outside the home, 52 percent  -- and 68 percent of your husbands  -- crack open your briefcase at least some weekends. To cut back, see whether there are ways to get more done Monday through Friday. Are colleagues constantly interrupting you, slowing you down? Do your meetings run too long? Limit intrusions by closing your door when you have a project you really need to focus on or when you're on a deadline, says Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute, in New York City. Draw up an agenda before meetings so they don't drag on forever. It also helps to determine exactly how firm your deadlines are, so make sure you truly need to hand in that report first thing Monday morning.

When you have to take work home, put a limit on how much time you're willing to spend on it. Set a timer for, say, one or two hours, then call it quits. "This will encourage you to use your time more efficiently," says Zager.

If you have a particularly time-consuming project that must be done over the weekend, give up something else  -- whether vacuuming the family room or watching football on TV  -- to recoup some family time. Hardly a huge sacrifice, since kicking back with the kids can be the best reward for having worked hard all week.

Mary Garner Ganske's last article for Parenting was "Winning Bedtime Battles," in the September issue.

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