My eight-year-old son struggles with just sitting; even on a short car drive to the supermarket, he asks if he can play on my phone. While this invariably results in my incredulous response ‘can’t you just sit and look out the window for the six minutes it takes to get to Coles,’ I have recently been confronted with the fact that I am no less addicted to connection and constant stimulation.

Whether I’m cooking dinner or watching telly, I have my phone in my hand and I find myself checking my social media accounts and emails, surfing the net or chatting to a friend on Messenger.

I tell my clients that engaging on social media to build their digital brand awareness doesn’t have to be a full-time job, that they too can do it while they are doing something else. And while that is true, I have discovered that I am not only afflicted with this technological addiction, I am also recommending it to others.

Am I a techno-drug dealer? That thought has seriously worried me.

I have always advocated for a healthy work/life balance and implored my clients to take care of themselves while also maintaining their careers. However, perhaps I am not practising what I preach.

I love that I am able to give my family time – that I can go to my son’s open days at school and watch him run in the athletics carnival without relying on the permission of someone else – but the payoff is being up until stupid-o’clock catching up on lost work time. Is that truly work/life balance? I genuinely love my job - it is as much a passion as it is a career path. However, the danger in loving what you do so intensely is failing to manage the equilibrium between work and life.

This can come in the form of not being able to say ‘no’ when you are asked to do something, constantly developing new ideas and trying to juggle multiple projects simultaneously without much support, and it can mean an inability to switch off, to disconnect from the world of work and live in the moment.

It was my birthday this weekend and my annual gift to myself is a spa day. This is meant to be an opportunity to step away from work, from stress, from the general chaos of being a parent, and be pampered, relax and ‘feel the serenity.’ I spent the first hour and a half trying to think of something I could think about. I was craving my phone so I could read on the Kindle app or check social media or just do anything so I felt like I was being productive and efficient – relaxing and getting stuff done!

I discovered, to my horror, that I was no better than my eight-year-old son asking for my iPhone for the six-minute drive to the supermarket. Who on earth feels bored during a massage? In that moment, I realised just how important it is to disconnect, to step away, to just sit. When I was finally able to let go and just relax, I really enjoyed the gift of me-time.

Being busy isn’t something to glorify. It’s a drug that is peddled and taken daily, particularly in the business world. It’s not just important to be able to disconnect from work from time to time. I’ve come to realise it’s vital for health, well-being and to then be able to genuinely reconnect with those around us.

Zoë Wundenberg, www.impressability.com.au