When working remotely, balancing work and family life isn’t always easy. In this situation, good organization and setting boundaries are often key. How can you organize yourself to work from home? How can you maintain a good quality of life? Our experts share tips for working remotely effectively while clearly separating your professional and family life.
A large number of employees were encouraged to work remotely to limit the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, responsible for the Covid-19 epidemic. According to a survey conducted in June 2020 by Malakoff Humanis among 1,610 private sector employees, 58% of those working remotely had difficulty separating their personal and professional lives .
Define your working hours in advance and set your limits
At the office, the work environment sets the rhythm of the day: its beginning, its end, its coffee breaks … Without this structure, it can be difficult to set your own boundaries and stick to them. “Studies show that remote workers generally tend to do more when they are at home,” says Caroline Ruiller. The risk of encroaching on personal and family time, in the evenings and on weekends, is very real.
The key to fixing this?
“Structuring your days well by defining in advance the time you start and the time you finish. Don’t forget to plan breaks during the day, including a proper lunch break like you would at the office,” replies Caroline Ruiller.
Another tip: determine in advance the time you plan to spend on each activity such as reading a file, answering emails, writing a note… Having a clear vision of the work time you need helps to better manage your schedule and to fit in personal appointments without disrupting your days.
Inventing new rituals before starting work
The commute to work is a transitional moment that allows us to mentally prepare ourselves. At home, we might be tempted to go straight from bed to our email inbox.
“ Dressing in work clothes , even if they are more casual, helps to get going. Creating new rituals also helps: walking around the block, taking your children to school, sending a smiley face to your colleagues to mark the start of the day… This makes you feel like you’re at work and avoids mixing your two lives.”
The same applies in the evening: the commute home is often seen as a decompression period. This can be recreated by walking the dog, cooking, or with a meditation session. It’s up to each individual to find the rituals that symbolically mark the beginning and end of the workday and help to set aside work-related thoughts.
Set up a space specifically dedicated to work
Working while seated on the sofa, at the kitchen table, or even on the edge of the bed risks making you feel like you’re never truly at home. “It’s important to create a dedicated workspace,” advises Sylvaine Perragin. “This establishes a physical, but also psychological, boundary that separates your professional life: you’re at work in your workspace, and at home in the rest of the house.”
Ideally, you should have a dedicated room for your office and all the necessary equipment. That way, when you close the door to your home office at night, you’re also closing the door to your workspace. But not everyone has that option. If your office is in the corner of the living room, you can create a partition by placing a shelf or a screen. “If you have no other choice but to use the dining room or kitchen table, you need to take the time each morning to set up your workspace. And to tidy it up each evening,” advises Sylvaine Perragin.
It’s certainly a bit of a hassle, but putting your laptop and files out of sight, in a drawer or a bag, prevents you from diving back into work as soon as you see them .
It often takes longer than we think,” observes Sylvaine Perragin. “And making yourself mentally available for these distractions greatly hinders concentration ! ” The solution: write them down on a Post-it note to more easily get them out of your mind and tell yourself you’ll do them later.
Wearing pajamas would not reduce productivity
To feel comfortable, and since we don’t necessarily have video conferences every day, it’s tempting to stay in our pajamas. But this casual dress is often associated with decreased productivity and a lack of effort. Not so, reveals a new Australian study published in The Medical Journal of Australia (study conducted in spring 2020, from April 30 to May 18, 2020).
In total, 163 people responded to a questionnaire covering various topics such as working hours, the presence of children at home, clothing, participation in virtual meetings, etc. They then self-reported their productivity while working remotely compared to working on-site in the office. The verdict: wearing pajamas was not associated with lower or higher productivity than wearing “daytime” clothes.
However, wearing pajamas was linked to poorer mental health . A larger number of participants who wore pajamas during the day at least one day a week reported that their mental health deteriorated while working from home. 37 out of 63 remote workers in pajamas (59%) reported this poorer mental health, compared to 22 out of 84 remote workers who were fully clothed (26%).
However, they emphasize that ” the simple advice to change clothes before starting work in the morning could partially protect against the effects of COVID-19 restrictions on mental health .” It should also be noted that the study reports a decrease in productivity among people forced to work remotely with their children at home. On the other hand, the presence of children was not associated with poorer mental health related to the pandemic.
What is the impact of teleworking on your personal and family life?
While the pandemic has led to widespread adoption of remote work, sleep experts have discovered some benefits of this practice for babies. A new study published in the journal Sleep Medicine indicates that remote work by young parents increases the amount of sleep young children get and reduces daytime sleepiness in parents. However, there are two caveats: in older children, parental remote work increased their screen time by 18 minutes, and parental depressive symptoms increased.
Parents working from home would improve babies’ sleep
The study was conducted on 1,518 American infants aged 1 to 18 months, whose sleep was monitored using a device and through questionnaires completed by their parents. Data collected in 2020 were compared to other data from 2019.
In detail, it appears that:
- The infants monitored benefited from 40 minutes more sleep per night;
- Older infants saw their screen time increase by 18 minutes per day;
- Parents working remotely reported less daytime sleepiness, but more depressive symptoms during the pandemic.
According to the study’s authors, this demonstrates the importance of better supporting parents regarding children’s screen time , but also highlights the benefits of remote work for toddlers’ sleep. Remote work could therefore be an attractive option for new parents , who sometimes struggle to balance work and personal life after the arrival of a baby.
