I remember when “the world shut down,” and people quickly shifted to a remote work environment. It was interesting for me to observe, as I had already been working remotely. The only reason my day-to-day life was affected was that I worked at the time for a multinational entertainment company. Due to quarantine, all touring shut down, and I was ultimately out of a job.
Fast-forward a year and a half and another baby later, and I was heading back into a largely remote workforce when I returned to work in August 2021.
I was now entering a global technical organization where everything I thought I knew about the ins and outs of the work I had done for the previous decade was about to be challenged in the best way possible.
The most significant change was that I was no longer one of the few remote employees working within an in-person organization. When that was the case, hours were very standard, and expectations were very clear—moving into a fully remote organization allowed for more ambiguity around my time, which, like anything else, came with pros and cons.
As a working mother of four children, the obvious pros are the ability to navigate around my children’s schedules, whether it be scheduled doctor appointments, unplanned sick or snow days, and the flexibility to go into the school to read or help out in the classroom when I want to. From this perspective, the work-life balance is priceless.
The real con is that I work from home and live where I work, and it can be hard to define the boundary between the two. While it’s amazing to have the flexibility to step away for a few hours for whatever reason and pick up where I left off at nighttime, it’s all too easy to slip into a pattern of overworking since everything I need is so readily available.
To find balance and ensure that I’m not neglecting my home for my work, I’ve implemented a few practices that help me stay on track.
1. Keep a strict calendar and stick to it.
I allow myself flexibility in my schedule in case a random illness arises, but for the most part, I try to stay on task within my working hours.
2. Keep your workspace clean and organized.
A dedicated (and clean!) working space to help distinguish the physical space where I work so that it doesn’t spill into every other aspect of my home. I will admit that having a laptop makes it too easy to do some of the more mundane tasks of my role from bed at night, and I’m working on getting better at not doing that.
3. Turn work notifications off after hours.
I turn off phone notifications, such as Slack, after working hours so that I am not distracted by everything that pops up on my phone.
4. Enforce boundaries.
The truth is that someone will always have a question, and there will always be more work to be done. But the work will also be there tomorrow. So unless there is a fire that needs putting out or a truly time-sensitive matter, when my day is done, it’s done. The rest can wait.
