This is the beginning of the end of this series about separating work from home when you work from home: the final post. If you’ve read all of the previous four posts (which can be found via the links below) thank you for your interest and patience.
If this is your first encounter with this series, you’ve missed a post or two along the way, or you just need to refresh your memory, I would recommend reading the part 4 because it establishes a framework for the continued discussion of boundaries you’re about to encounter. Last week’s post suggested using time as a way to set and maintain boundaries when working from home.
Another way to conceptualize boundaries is in terms of roles. We all play multiple roles in our lives. Career scholar Donald Super identified eight common roles: Child, Student, Leisurite, Citizen, Worker, Parent, Spouse, and Homemaker (for descriptions of these roles and more information about Super’s theory, click HERE.
The role or roles that are most salient or important to us at any given time often depend on the setting we are in (remember the discussion of context in the third post of this series?). For example, when we are around our parents or caregivers, our child role may take center stage. However, life is not so simple or clear-cut as to allow us to focus exclusively or even primarily on one role at a time all the time. Various roles (and the responsibilities associated with them) can and do often compete for our time, energy, and attention. It can be difficult to find and maintain a healthy balance when we value many of our roles but perceive that we cannot attend to one without neglecting another, especially when there are only so many hours in a day.
Photo by Wouter Beijert via Unsplash
This becomes even more challenging in the absence of externally imposed guidelines—like location—telling us which role to prioritize. Now that you are working from home, your Worker role may be vying for the spotlight against your other at-home roles. You might find that responsibilities or temptations related to other roles (e.g., Parent or Leisurite) impede your ability to fulfill your Worker role or that you have trouble “shutting off” your Worker role at the end of the day. In an effort to create and maintain boundaries while working from home, try identifying which of your roles needs to be at the forefront during various parts of your schedule and being deliberate about embodying that role at that time.
Image by Weston MacKinnon via Unsplash
Creating a metaphor for yourself may help with this process. For instance: there are many potential drivers on this bus and they all seem to have a different destination in mind—who needs to be behind the wheel right now? Or you can visualize a town hall meeting; there are multiple attendees with various agendas, but there’s only one microphone—whose turn is it to speak? As was the case with focusing on priorities during your work and non-work time windows, you can grant yourself flexibility here. This doesn’t mean that you have to ignore all of your other roles when your Worker role is in charge. The voice of the person with the microphone is the loudest at the town hall meeting, but that doesn’t mean the other attendees aren’t speaking and can’t be heard. Another rider on the bus may offer directions, make “backseat driving” comments, or temporarily take the wheel for a few minutes while the primary driver gets up to stretch their legs. But assigning one role (in this case, either the Worker or any role but the Worker) to be in charge can help you achieve your goals related to getting work done when it needs to be done and/or allowing yourself to rest, recharge, and attend to other important matters when you are outside of your work window.
It may also be useful to find ways to tangibly embody each role (or at least the Worker role) to create a greater sense of when you are or are not playing that part. Like the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, make it noticeable to yourself when you are entering or exiting a role. Think of the old cliché about wearing different hats (e.g., “Sorry, I must have had my therapist hat on for a minute there”) and create different “hats” for your various roles to wear when they are in command. It could even be a literal hat (or other garment/accessory) that you only wear when you are working (side note: please let us at Space Between Counseling Services know if you find any actual therapist hats). Getting dressed in your typical work getup (or a slightly comfier version of it) can serve this purpose well. When you reach the end of your work window, change clothes. Break out the sweatpants or loosen your tie or take off your hat or doff everything and walk around in your birthday suit for a while—whatever is going to make it clear to your mind that your Worker role is off duty for now. Naturally, if your normal work uniform happens to be your birthday suit (no judgment here!), the opposite will apply. Whatever the case, please just remember to put on pants when you go out to check your mailbox.
Treating your living space in a similar fashion can also be helpful in the process of delineating boundaries. A designated workspace can be helpful, but as was previously established, not everyone has an ideal version of this at home. If you don’t have an entire room or surface to devote to work and work alone, try assigning a certain chair, table, or other piece of furniture to serve that purpose. Still no such luck? If you are working on a piece of furniture that fulfills other necessary functions when you’re not working, get creative with your position or orientation in relation to that furniture as much as possible. For instance, “I’ll sit in this chair (or face this wall or set myself up on this side of the couch) when I’m working, and I’ll sit in this other chair (or face this other wall or recline on this opposite side of the couch) when I’m eating, lounging, et cetera.”
Photo by Dillon Shook via Unsplash
If you do have a home office or a room that you only use for work, go in there while you’re working, and try not to go in while you’re not working. If it has a door that you don’t mind shutting, shut it. Pretend it’s locked or has vanished entirely until your next shift. It’s harder to apply this “out of sight, out of mind” concept when this spatial arrangement doesn’t apply to your home and when you have no other option but to work in a room that you use for other purposes, but try tapping into it to whatever extent you can. Is there a piece of equipment (e.g., a headset) that you only use while you are working that you can put away, move, or hide when you are not working? Try that. The act of putting these items away and taking them out can signal to your mind that you are ending or beginning your allotted work time.
Another practice that can serve the same purpose and also contribute to the designation of a workspace is to change something visible about the space (perhaps by adding, removing, or rearranging one or more items) when you are using it for work to differentiate it from the times when you are using it outside of work. Give yourself bonus points if this change is something that makes your work experience more pleasant. This could be a plant that you put on the table only when it is in “desk mode,” a throw pillow that you put on your chair only when it’s your work chair, a scented candle that you only burn during work hours, or a chaotic stack of magazines, bills, and Bed Bath & Beyond coupons that goes to clutter up some other surface when its usual spot becomes the space where you make money so that you can pay those bills and buy more discounted throw pillows and scented candles from Bed Bath & Beyond.
While you probably don’t miss traffic, red lights, the fellow passenger who insists on talking to you even though you have your earbuds in, or other stressful parts of your commute to and from work, commuting creates a buffer zone between work and home that telecommuting does not offer or necessitate. Though it’s not quite the same thing, taking a few minutes to convert your home workspace in these ways at the beginning and end of each workday can recreate the transitional phase between work-life and non-work-life that commuting used to provide. It can give you a chance to switch roles more gently, gradually and, for some individuals, more fully. Incorporating other pre- and/or post-work rituals into your new routine—whether it’s stretching, listening to music, taking a few minutes to look out a window, or poking your head outside for some fresh air (at a safe social distance, of course)—can enhance the impact while simultaneously allowing you to build some extra self-care into your schedule.
Speaking of enhancement, combining elements of each of these conceptualizations of boundaries (from this post, roles and space and from last week’s post, time) and thinking about them in tandem may make it easier to grasp and apply this information than it would be to attempt to put them into practice separately. Here is an example of a template you can use to shape your thinking (and acting) on the subject: “When it is between the hours of ___ and ___, I will be at my designated work area, and I will prioritize my Worker role. At the end of that time, I will prioritize another role and leave my designated work area and/or convert it back to its regular non-work appearance to use it for its non-work function.”
Try to avoid blurred boundaries by minimizing the number and/or duration of instances in which you combine elements of your work and non-work formulas. Again, the key word is “minimizing,” not eliminating entirely. Be realistic in your expectations and try to balance firmness with compassion and understanding in your self-discipline. But in general, and as much as possible, time, location, and role should align. If the clock says you are within your work window, you should be spending most of your time and effort in your work location with the Worker role in charge. If, on the other hand, you find yourself sitting on the couch with the television on in the background at 8:30 at night typing “just a few more lines” to try to finish up the latest blog post you’ve been writing for work (just a hypothetical scenario, of course), tell your worker role to pipe down and let someone else drive.
This marks the end of my series about separating work from home when you work from home. I hope you have found the ideas and information in these last five posts helpful. By this point, some of you may have already returned to your original workplace; others may have been informed of tentative plans to return in coming weeks as restrictions continue to shift and lift. Those of you who are going back to working away from home will likely have a whole new adjustment to navigate as you reenter the “real world,” which may not look or feel like it did when you left it. For the rest of you whose work world and home world will still be occupying the same square footage for a while longer, best wishes as you await (with eagerness, boredom, or dread) your turn to return. Regardless of your current situation, good luck.
If all of this change or lack thereof seems like too much to manage and you could use some extra support, please feel free to reach out to the therapists at Space Between Counseling Services. We’re glad to help—even if it’s still from home for the time being (hooray for telehealth)!
MEET THE AUTHOR: ANNA KOZITZKY, LGPC
Anna offers therapy for individuals at Space Between Counseling Services. She specializes in treating interpersonal trauma, particularly related to sexual violence, and is motivated by the idea that if she can’t prevent people from harming each other in the first place, she can at least help out with the healing process after it happens. In addition to serving people who have directly experienced traumatic violence, she also works with supporters of these individuals. Anna also sees clients who are dealing with depression, anxiety, and major life transitions.
She appreciates creators who see and highlight the humor in the absurd elements of humanity (e.g., Marcel Duchamp, Igor Stravinsky, E.E. Cummings) and, where appropriate, considers it helpful to find moments to share laughter with her clients during their sessions. When she’s not working, Anna enjoys making things—especially food and crafts— to nurture her loved ones. She doesn’t just have one sweet tooth; she has 28 of them. To balance out a sense of cynicism brought about by some of the doom and gloom in the world, Anna likes to play pleasant video games like The Sims, Harvest Moon, and Stardew Valley.