Reflections on tele-working and transitions
In recent months I've had the opportunity to 'work from home' rather than go into the office. Doing this comes with some obvious benefits. Firstly, I do not have to commute and consequenly I gain back a couple of hours of my day. Secondly, I can get started earlier - important when time zones dictate my customers are already approaching lunch-time when I start. There are other benefits as well which indicate that this is all good for the environment, good for my efficiency and good for my concentration, good good good.
However, what I have realised is that although the benefits I mentioned are real, there are at least a couple of things to be mindful of. The one I'm going to mention here is the blurring of distinction between work and not work. My defintion of 'work' in this context is any activity which takes me away from anything I want to do personally. I do spend a lot of personal time at the computer, but that isn't work in the same sense. So I present a scenario:
Working at home means I can wake up, turn on my laptop and start responding to email well before breakfast and frequently before I've even taken a shower. Quickly I'm into what I'm working on and time flies - if I'm lucky I might make it to the kitchen for coffee, if I'm very lucky to the bathroom for that shower. Evening comes and if I'm working on a deadline, my wife will insist (usually quite strongly) that I push the laptop aside whilst I eat (the laptop stays on though!).
The above is not, of itself, a problem. Everyone gets busy from time to time, deadlines, meetings etc are inevitable. The problem is when this happens day after day. Again, busy periods are to be expected, but in order to deliver in these periods, there has to be a balance. Much of what I'm writing here isn't, of course, new. However, I do have my own thoughts on how to contribute towards this balance - regardless of whether they are original.
Most work days in a traditional office begin with the worker commuting in from home. Sometimes this commute is stressful, especially if you drive. This commute creates a transition from the personal world to the business world. It can last anything from a few minutes to a couple of hours, but let's say it's an hour. Of course, some people can't help working while they commute (cellphones and blackberries enable wonderful things, eh?).
My suggestion would be whether you work at home or in the office, as human beings, we need the transition. At home, get up and walk to the Starbucks for a coffee. If you are more artistic, get up and take the dog for a walk. If you don't have a dog, create one! You're an artist after all. Create some space between waking consiousness and the focus required for work. The transition will ease the mind into gear and ensure that when you do have an important call to make, customer to help, you deliver your best.
My thinking is that life is about transitions. Between work and play, between private and social time, between being awake and being asleep. If you can do these transitions well then you are on the path to a happier, healthier and more rewarding life.
On this day four years ago my Dad died. In a few weeks I will be turning forty. I was thinking about this and thought it would be an interesting idea to put a mozaic together of photos showing my Dad and I at aged 40 and also aged 14, the age I was when Dad turned 40.