This yin and yang of flexible schedule and structured schedule seems to have become more obvious over the past year. People have had so much to contend with, so many other things outside of work to juggle, that the flexible schedule has become more of a thing.
We had flexible work policies before, but this has taken it up another notch.
That’s a good thing: enabling people to manage their whole lives in a way that makes them feel valued by work and motivated to give more when they are focused on work. They can spend the time they need on the personal side of life, without feeling guilty anymore because they know that they can “make up the time” at a time that suits them (within reason – see holding others accountable).
I heard something annoying on the news last night about this. The surprise that we can trust our employees to get the work done. Why is that so surprising? Why do we still think that working from home means skiving? We’re proven that that isn’t the case – that people have mostly been more productive in this environment, not less.
So that flexible schedule should be here to stay. To accommodate watching school plays (hopefully, that one was always there, though I am still staggered at how often that falls to the mother, not the father). To accommodate a pottery class on a Wednesday afternoon (when we can get back to those face-to-face classes). To accommodate a nap in the afternoon. Or a walk. Those things that actually make us more productive rather than less, because we refresh our mind and body.
But the structure is still necessary. In fact, that is something that has got lost during the pandemic for some people, and that has not been good for mental health at all. We need a start and a finish time, not a day that goes on and on and on. We need breaks. We need time to go to the toilet in between meetings and to rehydrate. We need a proper lunch break, not at our desk.
Some people have found the false commute to be useful too. Walking around the block one way in the morning before work and walking the other way in the evening. A signal to the brain that we are starting and ending our workday.
Turning off the computer – and the phone, so that we are not always on.
Creating a separate space for work, if we can, so that we are not sleeping in the same room as we work in, or cooking in the same room as we work in. Our brain gets mixed signals about work time and home time if we don’t/aren’t able to designate a space that is purely for work.
If we work across time zones, we also need to be mindful that the same person can’t be expected to work really early or really late every time we meet. And if we do have an early start, we must feel that it is ok to clock off early too. And not think of it as early, as that will make us feel guilty!
I have noticed an inordinate amount of people have lengthened their working days this year, which is not sustainable, from a mental health perspective. If we have fallen into that because we don’t feel as though there is anything else more meaningful to do, it’s time to find something creative or meaningful to invest our time in, so that our brains can have a different kind of stimulation. It’s time to get more flexibility into our time and more structure.
