Four threats of working remotely.
When I joined Uber, my manager told me that I always can work from home whenever I felt like it. I remember I was ridiculously happy about it. Interestingly enough, none of us at Uber abused the rule. WFH was an excellent option, yet being in office was a default way to spend a day.
Working from home has become a default way to spend a week while coming to the office is either a luxury or a necessity.
Even though working remotely can be fun, it has some threats you should be aware of.
1. We don’t know how to stop working.
Makes sense. When your laptop is on the kitchen table, you are more likely to check your emails and respond to notifications. All the time. During breakfast, lunch, or dinner. For some reason, we find it essential to respond immediately because we can. Our life is becoming work. And our work is becoming life. They merge into each other.
As one of my friends told me: “After dinner, I simply don’t know what else to do, so I start responding to my emails.”
2. We don’t know how to start our day.
When you don’t have to go to the office, you can start your work at any moment in any place. For example, you can begin working in bed. And many of us do this. You have no idea how many times I would stay in bed with my laptop until lunchtime — checking my email or WhatsApp was the first thing I did after opening my eyes.
3. We can be more stressed.
Imagine you have to present some slides on zoom. You are on your own with your slides. Wifi can stop working, your family can be loud any time, and you definitely have to work much harder to engage the audience.
Worrisome thoughts can overtake our mind, and once we allow that — the whole nervous system is on fire.
4. And finally, working from home, we may feel very lonely.
It’s us and the screen. No regular small talks near the coffee machine, no optionality to have lunch together. It does get lonely. When we are lonely, we lose touch with others. We become more vulnerable. When we become more vulnerable, we tend to misinterpret harmless situations wrongly or imagine worst-case scenarios.
If a conflict arises, we forget how to handle it and usually approach it with hostility, prepared with facts, intended to win.
If any of this sounds relevant, the invitation is to slow down. It is essential to understand that all of this is normal, and many people are going through the same stuff. It may look like a mess, but it is possible to disentangle, deconstruct some of the habits and start all over. It is possible to adjust to the remote-first world — step by step.
Check out this 4 module program, where you will learn basic tools from yoga therapy and mindfulness, which gradually enable you to protect your well-being.
Enjoy your day. Enjoy being.
