There’s a growing trend in offices across the world. Workers are staying later and later every day. We can’t seem to cut ties with our desks, never feeling like all tasks have been done and always feeling like more can be crossed off our to-do lists.

At those times it feels like you’re not really getting that much work done. Because how productive can you really be when you’ve been working for 10 hours?

Employees who spend too long at their desks stop delivering work of value. There’s only so much within each of us. After a week’s worth of too-long days, the quality of work will no doubt diminish. It is important that workers remember the importance of their home lives, relationships and wellbeing. After all, most of us work to live. We certainly don't live to work.

If you’ve been unable to leave work on time recently, now is your opportunity to develop some habits which will help you to step away from your desk.

Understand how you spend your time. Make a conscious effort to understand how you spend each day. Once you discover that emails, meetings and chats at the coffee machine are wasting your days, you’ll be more likely to set up boundaries.

Plan your day in advance. Knowing what needs to be done ahead of time will allow you to plan and prioritise. If you know you do your best work at certain times of the day, block off that time to complete those tasks. You’ll know which tasks need to be completed, what appointments are on your schedule and which commitments need to be met so that these don’t take you by surprise.

Start saying no. If you know you won’t have time to finish tasks or attend meetings, say so. Your colleagues or clients don’t know that you don’t have the time. They’ll soon become used to you being unavailable at specific times and respect you for it. Studies have shown that every time you’re distracted from a task, it takes at least 20 minutes until you can focus again. So shut down all your distractions and concentrate on doing what needs to be done.

Make sure to finish the most important tasks – and then forget about the rest. There are reports and emails which can wait until tomorrow morning. There’s no reason for you to stay until late in the evening completing inconsequential tasks. It’s important that you create your own boundaries with both colleagues and clients. If you start replying to emails at night and sending completed work in the early hours, that will become normal and expected.

Plan to leave earlier than you really need to. If you need to be out of the office by 5pm, pretend to yourself that you need to be out by 4.30pm. Something always comes up at the last minute; if you’re a doctor, there’s always that late patient and if you’re a lawyer, there’s always someone else who needs legal advice. You can use that extra time which you built into your day to quickly deal with those problems.

Take a break during the day. You might think you have no time to step away from your desk, but a short break will increase your productivity in the afternoon, giving you that boost of energy you need to complete the day’s work.