Re-attaching to work is just as important as detaching

Re-attaching to work is just as important as detachingRe-attaching to work is just as important as detachingEverybody knows the importance of powering down at the end of the day its good for you to stop thinking about work, stop answering email, and go about enjoying your night. As it turns out, a process for re-attaching to work soon after you wake up in the morning may be important too, new research shows.Asmall study co-authored by researchersat Portland State University and Germanys University of Mannheim and published in the Journal of Management shows that having a re-attachment process is vital for their engagement throughout the workday.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreThe study surveyed 151 employees from a wide variety of industries, including public administration, finance, health, communications, and energy.How to re-attachThe re-attachment process is simpler and les s time-consuming than it sounds. Its simply building a mental bridge to work early during the day, therefore activating work-related goals, as researchers explain it. In other words, its thinking about work before you get there. Reattachment could include simply going over your upcoming day during your commute, reviewing your tasks to be accomplished while in line for coffee, or making mental to-do lists as you walk to your building.We know that detachment from work during non-work hours is important because it creates positive outcomes like higher life satisfaction and lower burnout, said Charlotte Fritz, a co-author and associate prof at PSUs College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, in a release. Now we need to think about helping people mentally reconnect to work at the beginning of their work shift or day so they can create positive outcomes during their work day and be immersed in their work. Its not enough to just show up.And thats as easy as reattachment, or in laymans terms, th inking about work before youre actually there. While youve probably been doing this to some extent already, the good news is that it builds engagement, and you can always make an effort to slow down and do it more mindfully if you think you havent been doing it enough.Through reattachment, employees are able to activate work-related goals, which then further creates positive experiences which allow people to be more engaged at work, Fritz said. Engagement is a sense of energy, sense of feeling absorbed, feeling dedicated to work organizations need employees who are highly engaged, and reattachment is key.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from jngste Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people