Is Home Still That Sweet Home?

Jules Heartly || January 5th 2021

I remember the times when working from home was a treat. Years back, it was an  unusual event. , it was  that  day you had to  work from home (WFH) to wait for furniture delivery or those few days you couldn’t avoid working from home because you had utility or other workers at your house, or perhaps an  occasion or two when you were too sick to go to the office and too compromised not to work.

When I did, it felt good.  And the best part of it was I got so much accomplished.  With fewer interruptions, I made a lot of progress on my projects, and then I wished I worked from home a lot more often. 

Then, I had this idea of WFH 50% of the time.  I imagined how wonderful that would be. I would be home when my child got back from school. I would have extra time in the morning to exercise (instead of going after work) and yeah, I would have a home-cooked meal for lunch on a proper table instead of eating at my desk.  And even with all that I would have a lot more accomplished at work during the same workday amount of hours, since I ended the workday at the same time I would have left the office.

Fast forwarding to the spring of 2020 and now the winter of 2020-2021,  the perception of most people regarding working from home has transformed to the point that a lot of them, and more frequently those who live with their children at home, are looking forward to going back to the office.   But do they really want to go back to the office 100% ? or  what they are actually aiming for is for a world of “balance” or a sense of “normalcy” in their lives?

As  people who continue   trapped in their homes due to the Covid19 Pandemic, try to manage their jobs, their children’s distance learning, their partners constant presence/nuisance,  without taking breaks from each other , and  fighting the daily battle against, the house chores, the cooking, the dishes, the laundry, the grocery list and the extra cleaning while performing on a boundaryless work schedule,  say “ I cannot wait to get back to the office”,  what do they mean?    

Perhaps not the physical office, but a time with more structure and better chance of balancing their lives?  The work from home “flexibility” has brought with it the “You are already at home, so you may as well work endlessly” attitude from a lot of employers.  

I have seen this happening across industries.  Not only the emails but the request for reports coming at any time within a 24-hour /7-day period, with the note indicating it must be received immediately or within a short period regardless of the day of the week or time of the day, “because since you are at home…”

How to deal with all these extra requests and a scantiness of “official working hours”  while still dealing with all the other personal and family responsibilities?  That is a question many people have been asking themselves. 

People at home already have a to-do list or task list or priority list or whatever you want a call it, but when there are no boundaries, when #WHF feels like a better-paid form of slavery, then perhaps there is the need of a new tool :  The Not-To-Do-List.

Yes, that! 

 DO NOT : 

1.  Check/Reply/ etc emails after certain times
2.  Perform any office work after i.e.  6 p.m.  (or anytime chosen)
3. Check your phone for messages during X setup times 
4. Answer phone calls while having family time 

And the list may continue or be adjusted as you may see fit.  The idea is to re-establish lost boundaries and give priority to having the balanced life that #WFH was supposed to provide.  

Before I go on more detail on this reflexion, it might be an interesting activity for readers who aren’t commuting anymore to reflect on their new routine. Are you sleeping more? Are you working out more often?  Are you having more quality time with the family?  Are you having more fun with your children?  Are you  enjoying work more than before? And what about those home meals are those still a delight? Is that something you do look forward to every day?

The answer to most of those questions. I am afraid is no.  But I will wait for your comments ..

When you’re not compelled to be in the office from 9 to 5,  you may have expected the flexibility of scheduling your day around your life or keeping your life balance in mind, but instead it keeps revolving around your work and even more, you keep scraping for time to live your life. 

If the future of work is flexibility, as it seems it would be following the lessons of this Pandemic And post-Pandemic economy,  it is a challenge to make sure such “flexibility” actually means the promised vision of a good, balanced life instead of one where the wants, needs, and dreams continue to be challenged by the capricious demands of the employers.

So be prepared and start crafting your Not-To-Do-List or any other tool you can think of and while at it, share it with all the blog readers via comments to my blog! 

Thank you for reading my blog and my best wishes for a healthy 2021!

and remember to follow me on twitter and Instagram @JBRADIANT