Creating Space in a 24/7 Accessible World
I'm going to date myself here, but some of you reading this blog will remember when the world of work was just a little different. Our customers couldn't call us after hours because we weren't at our desk phone to answer them. When we left work, our desktop computers stayed behind. We didn't respond to emails after hours because we couldn't access them. Work happened at work, and home happened at home. Maybe we spent long hours at the office, but the office didn't come home.
Now we work in a world where it's common practice to give customers and employees our cell numbers. We can check our email via a little device in our pocket. Texts come in late at night or while we're watching our kid's soccer game, or attending a music recital, or on a date with our spouse. For many of us, we're tethered to work 24/7.
Team Builder is a fully remote team. While we have a shared conference room for meetings, my team works from home 99% of the time. We've had to learn to set boundaries around work to protect family time and prevent burnout. Through trial and error and a constant battle against workaholic tendencies fueled by a home office space, I've come up with a few sanity-protecting strategies and mantras. Maybe you will find them helpful.
Remember: You are NOT an ER doctor. No one will die on an operating table if you close your laptop without responding to that email; let the call go to voicemail or wait until tomorrow to finish that project. Now yes, there are time-sensitive things, but if you’ve put in a good day’s work, it’s 100% okay to say I got done what I got done, and the rest will have to wait until tomorrow. This is not life and death.
Be selective with who gets your cell phone number. Okay now, if you are like me, many of your customers already have your cell phone number, so it's a little late on that front. However, you can stop giving it to new customers and vendors. In 2021, we set up a phone system (TalkRoute) that forwards calls and texts to our cell phones, but the beauty is that it has set hours. After working hours, the calls will go straight to voicemail. This technology is an excellent way to protect your evenings and weekends while providing mobility during regular working hours.
Set boundaries. I've learned to set a pretty hard line around Saturday and Sunday and in the hours between mealtime and my kids' bedtime. I need this time to do mom/wife/church stuff, and I rarely do "business work" in those spaces. As far as working late into the night, I am guilty of this for sure. It is something I do on some nights–but not every night. And during a busy season, not every night for weeks on end.
Give grace and be intentional. Sometimes, there is essential work that cuts into family time or distracts us from being present in the moment. That is the reality of the modern world. Sometimes we take family time during the day, pushing our work into the evening. But if you have a healthy relationship with your work the majority of the time, then those incidents where you do leave the dinner table to take a call or work so late that you start nodding off at your desk become "blips on the radar" and not sources of resentment or burnout.
I hope these musings are helpful to you as you set off to have a healthy and prosperous 2024! Work flexibility in the modern world can be a tremendous blessing if leveraged to our benefit.
PS. I am not immune to irony. I'm writing this blog on the last Saturday of December while my husband and daughter are hunting during late-season archery. But I'm guilt-free because I took a lot of time for my family during the holidays. That's the grace and intentionality part I mentioned in #4.