Returning to Office, and Not Returning to Bad Habits

As more employers demand employees to return to working in-person and shared office workspaces I wanted to share one of my non negotiables I picked up from my experience working from home.

Working from home was difficult for me initially. Without a clear signal to “clock out” I would continue to work on projects into the wee hours of the night. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy working from home because it eliminates a lot of office distractions and gives me the ability to work uninterrupted. No random pop ups from Coworkers, no chatty hallway conversations to ignore and no surprise donuts. I enjoy it. My routine was fill up my insulated cups, one with piping hot coffee and the other with ice cold water and sit at my desk on hours without taking an eye break or a bio break. I was always green and I was a machine, until I wasn’t. Eventually I realized something had to give.

While I can work all day, and night, Should I? Should I ignore my house chores and allow dirty laundry to pile up just to answer that instant message within seconds of receiving it? Should I put off my personal appointments, to quickly tackle ANOTHER set of revisions to a project? Should I miss the few hours the Midwestern sun blazes the sky, because I feel like I must achieve inbox zero? Essentially, I had all this flexibility, but I was miserable.

With that said, these are my non negotiables, a few things I swapped out, that enable me to be a better me while being a better worker. These boundaries helped me achieve a better work life balance from home and I plan to keep when returning to the office.

• Lunch Time is Sacred

My Lunch Time is Sacred. Too often, when I was in the office, I would accept a meeting that was scheduled during my lunch hour. I felt if I did not concede my personal time, when else can WE as a group meet. If I wasn’t conceding my lunch time in that manner, I was conceding it by running to the cafeteria, finding the shortest line, grabbing a lunch, and speed walking back to my desk. Once I got there, I would attempt to eat lunch at my desk while typing with one hand. I found myself doing this while working from home too. Eating at my desk is a bad practice, for me. Who am I helping? I was barely getting the food into my mouth AND I was barely typing.

To protect this boundary, I will:

• Use outlook to code my Lunch hour as out of office. This signals to others who have access to my calendar that I am not available. It also gives me time to run errands or eat lunch, AWAY from my desk. Most importantly it gives me a break from my desk and permission to feed myself.

• Set a timer on my SMART watch. This way I don’t get lost, head down in a project and look at 2pm, wondering why my stomach is growling.

• I’m DITCHING my Insulated cups

I’m ditching my Yeti for an analog mug. I would often use an insulated cup. This cup is a game changes because it keeps your beverages cold or hot for 8 consecutive hours. No need to get up, no need to refill. I can have my beverage at my desired temperature ALL day long, one sip at a time. My reliance on this type of cup was like a ball and chain. I am unknowingly tethered to my desk. This gives me a license to keep plugging away at a task for hours on end, not realizing, I haven’t gotten up to stretch in 2 hours or I haven’t taken a bio break in hours. Many times, that warm cup of coffee duped me into thinking I was taking care of myself instead by preserving my desired temperature of my cup of joe, while I focused on deep work. Yet, in actuality I was neglecting my biological needs. Sitting all day, not stretching, is NOT good.

To make a change and protect this boundary, I am shifting my mindset.

The coffee mug has two wins for me.

• The warmth sparks creativity and puts me in an energetic mood. There’s something about the warm from a coffee mug that makes me feel good inside. Why am I denying myself this good feeling?

• The fact that the coffee gets cold, is a natural indicator that time is passing and that I should wrap up this task or proactively communicate my status to my stakeholders.

  
  

• I will not take work me on vacation (mentally or physically).

I will enjoy my vacation. My out of office will read. "Sophia is out of the office, returning X date." I will communicate this well in advance, and the published org chart on our company website an help with locating who else in my group can assist, if you email me when i am unavailable. While I would love to pack my laptop, as a just in case measure, I will not. I am not taking a break from the beach to "check emails periodically." I need this space to recharge.

To protect this boundary,

• I will communicate this to my team and peers.

• I will not volunteer to work during my vacation and if it is suggested I will find an alternative

• I will delete outlook and instant message apps from my phone while I am on vacation.

These boundaries sound harsh, but these are MY Non-Negotiables, to preserve MY standard for work/life balance. Writing them down here AND inside my work planner is my form of accountability. I fear without seeing these non-negotiables I will slide back into "go-go-go mode;" always checking my emails, always online never taking breaks.

What boundaries will you maintain if you get that dreaded call to “Return to Office” notification?

Take 2 minutes to seriously think about it, What are your non negotiables?