GigaOM » work-life boundaries

Design tips for home offices in small spaces

Jessica Stillman — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:03:58 +0000

Constant connection and the blurring of the lines between rest and work that it sometimes causes is one of the clearest downsides to the otherwise pretty awesome phenomenon of remote and flexible working. Tech tools that block distractions can help keep the spheres separate and give your brain a chance to recharge, as can shifting company culture to encourage rejuvenating off-time. But can space design also play a role?

If you have a huge pad then keeping your spaces for work and for chilling physically separate is a non-issue – just locate them in different parts of your home and simply close the door on your home office when you’re done for the day. But what if you’re an urban dweller or otherwise living in tight quarters for budgetary, environmental or lifestyle reasons? How can you keep your work life from invading spaces that should be used for chilling?

Design site Apartment Therapy tackled this issue recently, citing a clever strategy an Australian design firm used to solve this issue in a Melbourne apartment. Nexus Designs created what the blog dubs, “a top secret slide-open home office,” using a moveable door that’s artfully camouflaged to appear like just another wall when closed (pictured — check out Apartment Therapy for a full slide show of images). The result is a secret space both James Bond and design aficionados would be proud of. The flexible space solves the issue of being “forced to work in the place where you normally relax and kick back to watch zombie flicks,” as well as doubling as a guest bedroom.

Of course, professionally designed secret walls don’t come cheap, so Apartment Therapy notes that the general principals that make this solution successful can be applied to come up with cheaper alternatives. The blog boils it down to three essential considerations:

Keep it subtle
Create fine lines between spaces
Never underestimate the power of lighting

The post suggests curtains might replace fancy sliding doors for those on more modest budgets and goes on to double underline the lighting issue, stressing that you should “be judicious with lighting. Make sure when the walls are down that both rooms can flow into each other, but when separated, they can function independently as well.”

How have you used design to keep work and relaxation separate?

Images courtesy of Earl Carter for Nexus Designs.

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Can companies, or countries, make workers switch off?

Jessica Stillman — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:01:05 +0000

Constant connectivity holds out the promise of location independence and virtual teams sourced from the best and brightest talent worldwide, but as we all know the ability to work anytime, anywhere also has its downsides. Knowledge@Wharton captured these nicely recently with a fictional but all too believable run down of a normal day in the life of a knowledge worker:

It is quitting time, and you know the drill. You grab your coat and slip on your Bluetooth for a quick call with a client on the commute home. You stop at the grocery store and, while you are in line, pluck out your BlackBerry to respond to emails. You arrive home, sit down to dinner and try hard to resist the flashing red light on your smartphone. Dinner is done: Time to check your email again, clear the dishes, and sit on the couch for some TV — with your computer on your lap, of course. Just a few last emails and then it is time for bed. You will soon wake up to do it all over again tomorrow.

The constant drip of communication in what used to be known as “off hours” is the subject of a lengthy article in the publication, which offers a run down of opinion on the issue out of the Wharton School. The piece asks: what’s driving our constant need for connection? What’s it doing to us and whose problem is it?

It kicks off with a list of high-profile companies that have recently done something to tackle their employees’ information overload, including French IT company Atos, Deutsche Telekom, Google and Volkswagen. From banning email to switching of BlackBerries after hours, these companies using various techniques to force staff to power down their devices – and their brains – for a much-needed rest. Countries are even trying to get hyper-connected workers to switch off – Brazil recently passed a law requiring employers to pay overtime when they ask employees to check emails or take calls out of hours. But experts from Wharton suggest that the problem runs deeper than a tweaking rules or policies can reach.

“These policies provide important signals about what the company stands for, but often fall short as workable solutions,” says Stewart Friedman, a Wharton practice professor of management. Why? Our communication addiction goes right to the heart of our most fundamental anxieties, according to Carolyn Marvin, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication:

We sometimes talk as if it’s technology that does it to us, that makes us this way. But the problem is deeper. Technology is just a very efficient way of implementing a view we already have of ourselves. That’s the notion that who we are is our ability to produce in the marketplace and constantly show that we are producing. Being a successful member of middle class society is showing our dedication to professional work and being available at all hours of the day.

And Marvin isn’t the only expert who feels that the primary combatant in the war against communication-induced burnout should be the individual, not the organization. Craig Chappelow, global portfolio manager at the Center for Creative Leadership, who also contributes to the Knowledge@Wharton article, puts the responsibility for policing boundaries squarely on the shoulders of “individual leaders,” who he says, should “model the kinds of behaviors they expect to see. It’s the boss who should be saying: ‘We’re better if we are not working all weekend long.’” And, he adds, this sort of policy should begin at home: “In my family, we have a rule: No BlackBerries until breakfast is over.”

Who do you think bears the primary responsibility for policing after-hours use of communication devices?

Image courtesy of Flickr use Orange Steeler.

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Put an End to Work-life Struggles

Georgina Laidlaw — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:00:02 +0000

There will always be times when we need to work overtime to get something finished, or because we take on responsibilities for a colleague who’s on leave, or because we’re trying to get ahead of the game for some reason.

But even without such triggers, many of us find ourselves blurring the lines between work time and down time, which is easy enough to do when your home space is your work space.

If you’re the type of person who tends to find themselves working longer hours, or doing little bits of work when you have spare moments on the weekend, these tips might help you to keep the boundaries between work and personal time nice and clear.

1. Track your hours.
For many, setting aside eight consecutive hours a day in which to work can be a problem — virtual meetings with team members in other time zones, varying deadlines, and other pressures can see us keep some pretty irregular hours, which can be difficult to reconcile with a “typical” nine-to-five day — especially if your employer has certain expectations of your availability during the day.

Rather than setting a work day schedule, you might find it more workable to track your hours to ensure that, overall, you’re working an appropriate amount of hours, and keeping aside enough personal time for yourself.

2. Protect your personal time.
It can be a challenge to keep your down time as down time, but it’s important if you’re going to recharge the batteries and be at the top of your game when you’re at work.

Value your personal time. If you track your time, you might be equally able to block out hours for personal time around the work time. Try to pursue interests that take you away from the computer, leave your PDA and work phone at home, or simply make a rule with yourself that you won’t turn to work during your personal time (incentives and rewards, like going to the movies, or paying a visit to friends, may help you kick the habit).

3. Shut the door.
If you’re fortunate enough to have a separate room as your home office, keep your work things in it, and shut the door on it when you’re having personal time. This physical indicator that you’re not at work can make a big difference to your state of mind, and your ability to let go of work at the end of the day, without your having to leave the house.

If you don’t have a separate room for your home office, you might try to physically dislocate yourself from your work in some other way: pack your laptop and other work tools like diaries and PDAs in a drawer, or cover your desk with a drop cloth, for example.

4. Use triggers to tell yourself when it is work time.
If you want to go all-out to differentiate your work time from your personal time, dressing in certain clothes, playing certain music, or having certain objects on your desk during work time can help you form mental associations about the way things are during work hours. They can help you to define the “work you” separately from the “at home you”.

For example, my workstation doubles as a desk in my house. When I’m at work, my desk looks a certain way: it’s littered with papers, my phone, pens and reference books. The reference books, in particular, tell me it’s work time. When it’s not work time, they live in a cupboard, which frees up the desk for other, personal pursuits.

5. Get outside motivation.
I’m sure that someone close to you would love to help you delineate work from personal time. Ask those people for their help — make plans to spend some of your down time with them, or if you’re getting particularly obsessive about work, ask them to tell you when you start talking or thinking about — or doing — work in your designated personal time.

Consider taking up a new hobby, sport, or other pursuit in your non-work time. Taking your mind off work and applying it to other things might take some practice, but it’ll be worth it.

What are your tips for delineating your work time from your personal time?

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Work-Life Boundaries for the Passionate Worker

Anne Zelenka — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:17:00 +0000

I bet some Web Worker Daily readers can see themselves in Seth Godin’s description of the passionate worker:

The passionate worker doesn’t show up because she’s afraid of getting in trouble, she shows up because it’s a hobby that pays. The passionate worker is busy blogging on vacation… because posting that thought and seeing the feedback it generates is actually more fun than sitting on the beach for another hour. The passionate worker tweaks a site design after dinner because, hey, it’s a lot more fun than watching TV.

The only problem with being super-passionate about your work life is that work can take over your whole life. That’s especially so for web workers since near-ubiquitous connectivity means you can almost always tweak that website, write that blog post, or code that next feature no matter where you are or what time it is.

How do you make sure your personal life doesn’t get lost? If you are truly passionate about your work, practices like limiting your work time or batch processing email may not be strong enough to keep work in its place — because your work is so engaging it magnetically pulls you back again and again.

What to do? Use boundary-setting methods that take advantage of your passionate personality. For example, choose flow-inducing hobbies and pursue personal goals with as much attention as you bring to your professional goals. You can read about those methods and more in the guest post I wrote for Tim Ferriss’ blog: 5 Boundary-Setting Tips for the Work Obsessed.

If you’ve come up with good ways to keep your passionate work life from smothering your personal life, share them in the comments.

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