Compartments

A lot of us talk about work-life balance like it’s a mythical beast, something we chase but never quite catch. But what if the secret isn't about perfectly balancing everything all at once? What if it’s about a more tactical approach—a skill some of us have developed, often without even realising it—that allows us to keep the different parts of our lives from spilling into one another?

I was speaking with a colleague today and realised something that has essentially become second nature to me after a lot of effort and hard work over the years. It’s a skill I see in others too, but in a small minority. The majority feel it’s a superhuman ability to keep things different and separate. It's the ability to put a task, issue, or emotion into a mental box and not let it spill over into your other time. It also means you can keep a personal problem from affecting your focus during a big presentation, or even set aside one tough work task to fully concentrate on another. This is compartmentalisation. 

The most immediate and obvious benefit of compartmentalisation is focus. When you can consciously put a problem in a box, you can fully engage with what's in front of you. Think of a surgeon walking into an operating room. They can't afford to be distracted by a fight they had with their spouse that morning. The stakes are too high. They must put their personal life into a mental container and dedicate their entire being to the task at hand. This is how some people are able to handle immense stress at work and still be a present, calm parent at home, reading a bedtime story as if the day's chaos never happened. They aren't ignoring the problem; they’re simply dealing with it on a schedule. They've earned a moment of peace by choosing to park the problem until the appropriate time.

This leads to the second major benefit: resilience. Life is an endless series of blows, both big and small. If every bit of bad news—a financial setback, a difficult conversation, a health scare—from one area of your life contaminates every other area, you’d never get anything done. Compartmentalisation allows you to absorb a blow in one part of your world without letting it knock you over completely. You can acknowledge the pain or the challenge, place it aside, and continue to function. It allows you to deal with it later, when you’re mentally and emotionally ready, rather than being incapacitated by it in the moment. This is a critical coping mechanism, a form of mental self-preservation that allows for forward movement even in the face of adversity.

Like anything, there’s a flip side. For all its benefits, compartmentalising has some real risks. The biggest one is avoidance - I know I have done this in the past and do it sometimes even now much to the annoyance of folks impacted. The difference between healthy compartmentalisation and unhealthy avoidance can be blurry, and it's a line easily crossed. Putting a problem in a box is great, but if that box is sealed shut and thrown into a locked closet, you’re not dealing with it. You’re just hiding it from yourself. That emotional baggage doesn't just disappear; it has a way of leaking out anyway, often in unexpected and unhelpful ways—like lashing out at a loved one, or developing anxiety and stress-related illnesses. The issues we don’t face and process eventually come back to haunt us.

It can also lead to emotional detachment. If you get too good at putting feelings in boxes, you might start doing it reflexively, even when it’s not a good idea. In a professional setting, this might be a benefit as explained by Marcus Aurelius in his wonderful work Meditations, but in personal relationships, it could be a disaster. This can make you seem cold or distant to the people who care about you. People find it tough to build deep connections with anyone who is always keeping a part of themself walled off. True intimacy requires vulnerability, and if your go-to response is to put emotions in a box, you need to be vulnerable with yourself. You need to be in touch with your own feelings so that you know how you truly feel about a situation and not after it’s too late.

Ultimately, compartmentalisation isn’t a magical solution; it’s a tool. And like any tool, its value is entirely dependent on how you use it. When it helps you manage your life without losing your balance—allowing you to be fully present for your family after a difficult workday, or to nail a project even when you're facing a personal challenge—it’s a skill to be treasured. It's about being strategic, not suppressive. It’s about choosing when and where to focus your energy, not about pretending a problem doesn't exist.

The key is to use it consciously, not as an unconscious defence mechanism. A healthy approach involves a deliberate decision: "I'm putting this aside for now, but I will come back to it later." It requires a commitment to open the box when the time is right, to process the emotions, and to address the issues you've temporarily tabled. When compartmentalisation becomes a way to avoid things you need to face, that's when it’s time to take a hard look inside those boxes. Acknowledging that we need to return to them is the first step toward true mental and emotional wellness.

C