The New Corner Office by Laura Vanderkam

Author:Laura Vanderkam
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-07-20T16:00:00+00:00

GET A LIFE

If the last section was aimed at parents, this is for others. Before the pandemic, I led time-management workshops at a number of all-virtual companies’ in-person annual retreats. We studied schedules together; we hashed out improvements. I soon noticed something. People with kids or other caregiving responsibilities were much better about observing an end to the workday. This makes sense: someone has to pick up the kids at day care, meet a bus, or send a sitter home. People who lived on their own or with unrelated roommates often let work bleed into all hours of the night (and weekend).

I know this from my own experience. During my early work-from-home days in my Upper East Side apartment, I would spend the evenings half working and half surfing the web. I wasn’t relaxed, but I wasn’t getting much done either. What broke this cycle for me was joining three community choirs. Each had weekly rehearsals on a different night, which meant that on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, I had to stop work at 6:00 P.M. to go somewhere. This made me much more efficient (and enforced a more regular showering schedule).

Likewise, even if you’re busy with work, don’t shy from making nonwork commitments. Join a softball team, sign up to serve weekly at a soup kitchen, or make an appointment with a trainer at 7:30 P.M. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You and your colleagues will respect a formal commitment more than a general desire to stop working at some point. You will plan your energy and workflow with your commitments in mind. Even in social distancing situations, there are options: a weekly Thursday night video chat with friends, a 6:00 P.M. appointment with your garden to work for an hour before sunset, loading up a virtual vespers service.

Adopt the same mind-set for weekends too. I won’t say “don’t work on weekends” because we all need to sometimes. Occasionally, we want to tackle something big or speculative. But without conscious markers of time, Wednesday and Sunday can wind up looking exactly the same. Instead, push this work to designated windows (e.g. Saturday morning, Sunday after 7:00 P.M.). Proactively plan in fun stuff: a hike, an elaborate baking project. A satisfying rhythm is achieved not by working less, but by having a compelling life outside of work. It’s worthwhile to get this right.

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