You Might Need A Commute

Home offices and virtual learning are a reality for a large number of people. There have always been quite a few types of positions that allowed for remote work as well as on-line education courses, but the COVID pandemic expanded those options to be available for many more people. Here I’ll refer to them as ‘home workers.’ 

Some of my clients who are home workers come to me for help navigating job responsibilities, productivity, and time management.  What I’m hearing most often from these clients is that they struggle to accomplish tasks and projects, in part due to blurry lines between work and home. 

For many, before COVID, there used to be a nice clean transition: They’d wake up in the morning, get ready, and physically leave their homes to go to work or school.  In the afternoon, the transition was reversed.  The boundaries were clear, and the routine allowed for a mental transition while the physical transition occurred.

Home workers are continually surprised that they can’t simply ease into a work or school routine while working from home.  For productivity specialists, this isn’t all that surprising.  Our minds don’t make transitions as quickly and as easily as we’d like to believe.  It’s because they’re missing one critical piece of the puzzle: The commute.

Consider the things that your commute used to include:

In the morning:

·        Coffee or tea in a travel mug

·        Talk radio, music, or podcasts

·        Breakfast with the kids before leaving for the day

·        Hands-free phone calls with family and friends

In the afternoon:

·        Errands before returning home

·        Grabbing take-out

·        Kissing family members when arriving home

·        Taking the dog for a walk

The good news is that you can still have a commute—all you need to do is create one. By adding in a ‘fake commute,’ you give your brain time to adjust to the change of going from home to work, even if you don’t have to change locations to get there. 

Try going through your morning as if you had to leave for the whole day.  Have breakfast, pack your coffee or tea, and get dressed in something other than pajamas.  Then, actually leave the house. 

Drive around the neighborhood and listen to music.  Or cue up a podcast and walk around the block. 

When you are all done and arrive back at home, pretend you’re arriving at the office or school.  If you live with others, don’t interact with the pets or your family when you walk in (please warn your family about this experiment so there are no hurt feelings).  Go straight to your desk, and start your day.

At the end of the workday, reverse the process.  Leave your desk, drive around or go for a walk, and then arrive back home as if you’d been gone for the whole day.

Are you a home worker who thought that by now you’d have established a routine and be better able to navigate the blurry transition from home to work/school and back again?  Don’t fret.  If you are still struggling, you’re far from alone.  The solution might be that you need to add a commute back into your schedule.