In the Playground Experiment, a teacher brought her students to a public playground, where there was no fence. On a separate day, the teacher brought the same students to the playground which was now fenced. How do you think the fence played into the children's behavior?... Take a moment to consider and then scroll for the surprising results...
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In the first (non-fenced) scenario, the children remained huddled near the teacher and did not use the full playground space. The second scenario had dramatically different results, with the children feeling free to explore all areas across the playground that had the given boundaries. The fence acted as a visible cue of acceptable behavior - in this case, how far it is okay to stray.
If you now work remotely, have you noticed this missing 'cue' that is disrupting your boundary with work? Leaving the computer in the office and driving home after work was a clear cue of disconnecting from work. While there are so many benefits to working remotely - we lost that explicit cue of turning work off. At home, it is so easy to bring your laptop to the sofa... dinner table... and dare I say it... to bed... before disconnecting. This can easily lead to burnout, disrupted sleep, and misalignment with values by allowing work to trickle too heavily into home life.
So what can you do to make an amazing opportunity of working remotely work for you? The 'intention' of shutting down by 5PM/17:00 at the end of the day isn't the most inspiring or obvious boundary. Consider more clear boundaries that truly act as a trigger that the workday has ended. If you have the luxury, create a dedicated office space at home. When you're in that office, you're "on", when you're out, you're "disconnected". I once went as far as painting my office space a different color and decorated the space differently to truly create a visual distinction from the rest of my home.
What have you tried to create your disconnection boundary? Add a Comment and follow the Work Balance Matrix page to learn more about work balance practices.
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