"What is your biggest gap right now?" I asked an executive client, "I have no balance in my life," she answered. I have to say that this is one of the biggest challenges I hear when I coach right now, executive and business clients. If I can be very honest, I feel that I am struggling with this gap too.
So what exactly is the work/life balance many of us experiencing in this new reality of COVID-19? It is the want to have clear boundaries between our work time and personal time; when work time ends and the other part of the day starts.
I was wondering why after working from home for almost ten years, I find myself struggling again with setting clear boundaries around my work/life day like many who transitioned to work remotely right now? What changed? How is it even possible?
Here is what came into mind:
When we work from an office, there is, mostly, an action or a choice we make that communicates to us unconsciously: one part of the day is over, and a second part is about to start. It can be taking the train back home, and knowing that you are transitioning from work life to personal life, it can be your two hours commute back home. It can also be going to the gym at your company's building and changing your clothes, and it can be planning a date night or meeting with a friend for a drink after work. No matter what actions or choices you take, they are letting you know that your workday has ended, and another part of the day will start soon. For me, the line that splits between my work time and my personal life was the action of picking up my youngest son from school on the days I didn't have child care. Picking up my son from school was a hard stop and the beginning of after school activities and dinner.
But what do you do when your workday starts at home and ends at home? What do you do when you don't need to get up to buy lunch, or drive home or pick up your child from school? What do you do when you work with different time zones around the world, and the emergency calls keep coming and coming since the people on the other side of the line know you don't go anywhere? How do you stop?
So before I make a few suggestions that can also support you every time you feel that it is hard for you to close this gap, I want to share why we find it hard to solve this problem. You see, I believe that our problem of wanting to set boundaries between work and life is not the problem; the problem is that we are stuck with a solution. I see this "problem" many times, clients who stuck with a solution that keeps the gap stagnant, and they can't move into solving a problem.
We believe that there is one solution to solving this problem, but what worked before the quarantine probably will not work for us now. The same actions we took before might not bring us to closing the gap.
Here are a few ways you can approach this problem differently and setting boundaries with your work and life:
Set a few hard stops that work with your schedule. it might be that working 9-5 is not possible anymore, so let's set hard stops in your day that matches your current situation and are realistic. When you set time you are off your desk make sure to plan it the night before or even the week before if possible. Have your time off in your calendar.
If you have young children that need your attention with homeschooling or getting out some steam, coordinate with your partner when would be the best time for each one of you to take time off. It might be different every day or the same. If you are part of your team, try to coordinate that you take time off in different hours that each one of you is available to give answers and cover for the absent one.
But how do you stop? From doing much research about working with distractions, one of the tips my clients find helpful and like is to set an alarm clock on your phone (or old school alarm clock) and put it as far as possible from your desk. It must be a walking distance, which will make you get up and leave your desk and even your office and surrender to the sound of stop.
Take a half-day off or even a full day off once a week or ten days. For some of us, setting daily boundaries is not going to work right now, or ever - and that's okay. We are different people, and we work and behave differently. So if you work long days and that's your pace - it is okay, but make sure to set time in your calendar that once a week, you will stay away from your desk completely and recover.
Take your stop first thing in the morning and then start your working day. Wake up as far as possible from your computer and phone, start your day early and quietly with coffee, workout, journaling, and even reading and only then dive to your work.
As you can see, there are many options to create your boundaries, we are different people with different needs, and in times of change, we need to accept with or without ease that what worked before might not work for us in the new reality. I think the biggest learning the COVID-19 is teaching us is that every time we think we figure things out they change and we need to keep adjusting. It might be that humans became too arrogant and there is a lesson for us to learn –– so please remember that even if one of the solutions works for you today and even tomorrow, it might now work next week. We still don’t know the end of this story, but what you can do is look every day and say: is my focus is on the problem of being stuck on one solution? If you are stuck with one solution it might time to step back and ask yourself and maybe ask help from another person - what other solutions available to possible to approach my problem?