Working From Home

3Rituals, Routines, and Boundaries

Your laptop is your pantry.

When you're working from home, it's always there. Always available. Always tempting you. Like those pretzels or potato chips or donuts right there in your kitchen, work is always available if you want it. But you know that always grazing isn't a healthy strategy for your diet. It's also unhealthy if you're always peering into your work pantry.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

When work is always on and easily available, it's vital that you create some healthy segmentation – a separation between work and home.

You've got to close the pantry door.

To me, the key to success here is about being purposeful. Rituals, routines, and boundaries exist whether you choose them or not. For example, is banging out emails from your bed at 1 a.m. really your most productive time?

Maybe. Maybe it's the only time you've got. Hey, I've been there. But I've been there enough to know that no, crunching emails and working in the wee hours of the morning isn't really productive. Sometimes things bubble up, but is making a habit out of working all the time sustainable? Helpful? Desirable?

“Your calendar bleeds from one thing to the next and you check your email or feeds in between,” says John Taschek, Senior Vice President of Market Strategy at Salesforce (https://bit.ly/wfh-sf1). “The fluidity of the day may ...