The new approach to work – flexi-hours and working from home – was supposed to bring us closer to that elusive goal: work/life balance. But it appears to be having the exact opposite effect. So how do you reap the benefits of flexibility without burning out? Jess Stuart has some tips.
I’m old enough to remember an office without smartphones. When the only time you could access your emails was when you were sitting in front of your computer, usually in the office. Then with laptops, BlackBerries (remember them?) and eventually smartphones, the lines blurred. Work calls and emails invaded our homes, our weekends and our evenings.
Previously, the only time we’d be contacted at home was if someone had died. Now there was pressure to take calls and texts at our boss’s whim.
This intensified when the pandemic hit and many of us were forced to work from home for long periods. Without the commute, a defining ritual that separates work from home, and with the set-up of the home office, the boundaries faded further.
During the pandemic many people told me they were logging on to work on earlier because they no longer needed to commute. They would also linger online later because there was no school pick-up to race across town for, or a certain time everyone else was packing up and leaving. When I asked if anyone had asked them to do this the answer was often “no”. Many were working longer hours of their own accord, and some had hardly noticed they were doing it – it was just another acquired habit in this strange new world we were all navigating.
It’s not such a new world anymore and yet some of those habits have stuck. In 2024 about a third of us worked from home some of the time – a quarter of those did so exclusively, while the rest took a hybrid approach, working part of the week at home and part of it in the office.
Sky-high levels of work-from-home burnout
Working from home, in our Ugg boots with our pets for company and snacks on hand, has a relaxed image. But according to recent studies, 67% of remote workers feel pressured to be available all the time, and 86% of employees who work from home full-time experience burnout.
This is not what we expected when we did away with our expensive and often stressful commutes and embraced work-from-home benefits like putting on the washing while we listened to a Zoom meeting or walking the dog at lunchtime.
What’s emerged is that we need to balance our newfound flexibility with structure and discipline. To set good boundaries around work when we’re at home and that way recreate the days when we could leave work at work and switch off when we left the office.
Emma, a marketing manager in central Auckland, started working remotely during the pandemic. At first she loved the flexibility – no commute and the ability to work in her comfy pants. She soon noticed a shift though, telling me that rather than enjoying a coffee before heading to her desk, she’d dive into her emails from the kitchen table. Lunch turned into quick bites at her laptop and evenings were now filled with last-minute phone calls.
It was when Emma found herself scrambling to answer an email at 6pm, while waving away her young daughter as she hung around her mum needing attention, that Emma realised things needed to change.
But how do you do that? I’m a massive fan of flexible working and worked remotely well before the pandemic. But it requires solid boundaries and a good routine around the separation between work and life to be successful.
Seven tips for creating work/life boundaries
• Have a specific space in your home you use only for work and don’t work from other spaces that are “home life” spaces such as your kitchen bench or your bedroom.
• Set a time to power off all devices and disconnect from work – and be strict about it.
• On your work-from-home days, set little boundaries such as reminders for breaks, a walk or a change of scenery or position. Have a start and finish time and stick to it where possible.
• Communicate your working plans and availability with your team, so you’re managing their expectations and setting an example. If you’re away for a long weekend put an auto-reply on your email or messages, letting people know when you’ll be back and who they can contact in your absence. If you’re a boss or a manager, encourage your staff to do the same thing. This can be challenging for those of us who are eager to please, but what is at stake is your health and enjoyment of life, so prioritise it.
• Establish a shutdown routine. This is something that signifies to your body and brain that you’ve finished working and can start to transition to home life. A regular commute will often do this, but what’s the equivalent when you’re already home? It might be taking a shower, walking the dog, changing your clothes into something more relaxed, or turning on some music and making a hot drink.
• If you’re working remotely, leverage the opportunities being at home brings. That might mean getting laundry done with your ear buds in while you take a call or doing some dinner prep at lunch time – things that mean that when work’s done for the day you’re more free for fun stuff.
• Work in a way that works for you, where possible, within your organisation’s schedule. I do my creative work in the mornings because that’s when I’m at my best. I save the afternoons for meetings and emails.