Remote Work: Boundaries
Going from working in the office five days a week, 9-5, with a door to door time of 2 hours, to working at home 100% with zero commute time is a big shift.
I loved it at the beginning. The stress of commuting disappeared.
Over time, a different kind of stress appeared:
Home time bleeding into work time
Being at home for work meant I can instantly help my wife out any time.
At first, this was great - because I couldn’t before and it reduced her stress (“Happy Wife, Happy Life”).
This built up stress in me, as I might take an hour from the work day, I would need to find an hour in the “home day” to make up for that hour.
This is hard because:
- My wife had a hard: “it’s after 5pm, so you should be doing home stuff” attitude.
- When resuming work - if I needed colleagues to complete a task, now I would be encroaching on their home time.
Not a great way for work-life balance, right??
As I embrace remote work, I have to set boundaries.
- When my wife asks for help during the work day, I let her know I have to trade off time later to get things done.
- I keep a task list of things that don’t need colleagues to help on for those “home time” work.
- My “home office” has a lock on the door that I use to signal to my family: Do Not Disturb - I’m working.
- During work time - I minimize my time out of my office, so I work more and don’t have to work during “home time”.
Remote work is definitely a great way to balance work and life - it does take changes and discipline to… make it work. 😉😉