Abbey's Road: Consciously building 'people time' into remote work is vital to productivity
Author's note: I am exceedingly grateful for the opportunity to be a work-from-home mom. I've been doing it for more than a decade, and the flexibility it has afforded me — to parent, clean, work, create and much more, all from the comfort of my own four walls — is a blessing I will never take for granted.
I recognize this and lead with it because it's important to frame what follows. Find gratitude before tackling challenges. That's my M.O.
That being said...
Anyone who has done it would probably agree that working from home does have its sticky spots, among them being that you sit on your couch with your laptop open, fully intent on accomplishing the things on your to-do-list, when you happen to catch sight of the cobwebs in the corner of the living room and can't actually get work done until you address them. While you're up there, you notice the spots where you messed up when you were painting six years ago and figure you may as well touch them up, at which point the timer on the laundry is going off, and you have to put stuff in the crock pot for dinner, and a kid forgot their homework that you run to school against your better judgment, and then it's 8 p.m., and the day is over.
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Working from home is like "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie: House Edition." On repeat, five days a week, 40-some weeks a year. (Summer break is a whole new animal, and I'm not prepared to tackle that here.)
Remember in 2020 when this concept became a novelty? Everybody was buying desks and setting up workstations in their closets, while their sourdough bread baked, and they were doing zoom calls in their boxer shorts and living their best isolation life.
While it appears most of the workforce has returned to in-person, remote and hybrid work aren't disappearing anytime soon, and I have to believe I'm not the only person who has made the discovery that in order to be productive in this setup, what I really need is intentional, built-in PEOPLE time.
Even if I don't realize that's what I need until I'm actually there .
Working from home and talking to my cats all day means I relish opportunities to spend in the bleachers with fellow skater moms, trying to figure out if our kids are doing flip jumps or loop jumps and catching up on actual life.
Working from home and having peace and quiet for five hours a day is awesome but means that when I meet my husband for lunch or a friend for coffee, I crave moments of reality that come with conversations about everything from the mundane to the heart-wrenching. These windows of time connect me with a reality that is beyond my own, and it's so vital to maintaining my grip on the world.
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In order to be more intentional about people-ing — and because I haven't done it since pre-COVID — I decided last week to join our local YMCA.
Because I have to go somewhere, and I can only handle so much of the grocery store.
It's remarkable, the energy you feel just being in a building with strangers when you're used to all things predictable, quiet and familiar:
The possibilities for spontaneous conversation with random people, if only "Hey, what's the best time to swim laps so I don't anger any octogenarians?"
The deftness required to navigate shallow conversation while waiting for a class to begin.
The anxiety of deciding whether to take a new class or explore a new area.
All these social skills that I sort of let slide by the wayside in the time I've spent holed up in my house.
If you're a remote worker, or perhaps self-employed, or in another situation that means you spend most of your time in isolation, consider this your friendly reminder to carve out "people time," even if that's not your first instinct.
(And before you ask — yes, even introverts need people.)
For me, the process of putting myself in a new and maybe even uncomfortable situation with people I don't know has been a great reality check and reminder of how the world works: We meet people. Sometimes we learn from them. Sometimes we grow with them; other times, we grow because of them.
In any case, if we aren't intentional about making the time, we're missing out on growth.
And don't we all want to finish a little stronger than when we started?
Besides — making new friends might be just the motivation you need to take care of those cobwebs in the living room.
Abbey Roy is a mom of three girls who make every day an adventure. She writes to maintain her sanity. You can probably reach her at amroy@nncogannett.com , but responses are structured around bedtimes and weekends.
This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Abbey's Road: Building 'people time' into remote work is vital
