When it comes to working remotely, many benefits come to mind. In practice, however, working from home can be so all-consuming that we don’t know where work ends and personal life begins, and we need strategies to balance the relationship between the two.
Working from home offers many opportunities. Who wouldn’t want to avoid the fatigue, cost and time of commuting, to be able to work from the balcony, bedroom or even the garden, to have access to food from the kitchen or fridge instead of packing a lunch, and to be free to wear whatever clothes you feel comfortable in during working hours, from jeans to pyjamas and slippers?
More than 30% of jobs in Europe could be done from home, according to research by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of people working from home in 2023 was the same as in 2022, showing that working remotely is becoming “the new normal“, says Stanford professor Nicholas Bloom, who has studied remote work for decades. A university degree is an advantage for those who want to work from home—the survey found that more than 50% of workers aged 25 and over with at least a bachelor’s degree could work from home, while only 22% of those without a degree could do the same.
In 2024, Bloom and a team of researchers conducted a study to measure the productivity of working from home compared to working in an office. While one group of employees came into the office every day, the other group worked from home two days a week. The productivity differences between the two groups were small, but those who also worked from home said they were happier with their work-life balance. In addition, resignations fell by 35% among those in the latter group, which is highly profitable for employers who can incur costs of up to $20,000 for each employee who needs to be replaced.
Teleworkers are more productive and less likely to take time off when they’re sick, according to a 2015 survey by ConnectSolutions. In fact, 77% of respondents said they are more productive when working from home, 30% said they get more done in less time when they telecommute, and 23% said they would be willing to work more hours from home than in the office. (Indeed, according to U.S. News & World Report, telecommuters work 5-7 hours more per week and sometimes work while sick or on vacation).
Teleworkers “tend to be happier, less stressed and healthier.”
Highlighting the benefits of remote working for both employees and employers, Michael Fitzpatrick, managing director of ConnectSolutions, points out that even the personal benefits for employees can be seen as benefits for employers, as teleworkers “tend to be happier, less stressed out and healthier thereby bringing down the costs of turnover, absenteeism, lower productivity and other issues.”
Given the combined benefits of working from home, it could be the ideal solution for many employees, provided they manage to maintain the line between work and their personal lives.
Working from home and work-life balance strategies
Two studies published in May 2024 concluded that older workers manage to draw a clearer line between work and personal life than their younger colleagues, but that this demarcation is also associated with higher productivity and a better work-life balance. The conclusion is that there are a number of strategies that can be applied in order to separate work and leisure:
Physical (and digital) space strategies
For greater efficiency, it is necessary to create a quiet workspace where distractions are minimal. This space, equipped with the necessary work tools and kept tidy, should not be used for any other non-work related activity; this will psychologically separate the two departments. If there is no boundary, including a physical one, between the professional and personal environments, the temptation to take on domestic tasks increases and trying to juggle housework and work tasks can be exhausting. A workspace helps us to concentrate during working hours and makes it easier to disconnect from thoughts of work projects when the working day is over.
Whether we work in an office or from home, balance means thinking of work and home as two complementary states of mind, writes journalist and author Steve Hogarty. In one state, we can eliminate distractions and enter a state of flow where we are completely focused on our work; in the other, we can disconnect from work projects and turn our attention to family and personal projects.
Strategies for communicating with loved ones and colleagues
Colleagues should be informed about our work schedule, but also about times when we are not available to read non-urgent work messages, for example. Also, too many Zoom meetings or unimportant conversations can make our work unnecessarily long, so we need to find ways to reduce the interactions that prevent us from completing tasks on time.
Family and friends also need to know what hours we’re working so that interruptions are minimised. A quick chat with a family member, a text conversation with a friend and a phone call about weekend activities don’t seem like the end of the world—except that these interruptions become the norm (after all, how bad can a few minutes break be?) and unfinished work tasks keep us at our desks until the hours when others are eating dinner or getting ready for bed.
Time management strategies
A first step to separating work time from personal time is to create and maintain a regular work schedule, explains journalist Jill Duffy, who has been working from home since 2015 and has even written a book on the subject.
Getting everything done on time requires planning, setting goals, and prioritising tasks according to importance and deadlines. Apps and other tools that help us organise and track our progress can also be useful. There are several productivity apps (such as Rescue Time) that measure the time spent on different tasks, helping users to see where they need to improve or which times of the day are most productive. Other apps encourage users to achieve set goals in a variety of ways, from receiving notifications to entering competitions.
Behavioural strategies
Working remotely doesn’t have the usual rituals that start and end the average employee’s day, but that doesn’t mean we can’t create our own. It’s helpful to know what element of the morning routine indicates that we’re about to start work, writes Duffy. It could be making a cup of tea, returning from a short morning run, or getting dressed in work clothes (for some, wearing pyjamas or something cosy works well, while others need clothes they can leave the house in at any time to switch between the two routines efficiently). To disconnect from work concerns, teleworkers may also need a routine at the end of the work day.
Breaks are also very important, especially for those with sedentary jobs—at least once an hour we should get up and move around a bit, preferably outdoors. As various studies have shown, these active breaks are more beneficial to our health than we realise.
A 2017 study found that sedentary behaviour is literally killing us, and that it’s not just the amount of time we spend sitting that’s a major risk factor, but also the amount of time we spend sitting between breaks. Following several thousand adults over the age of 45 for four years, the researchers found that people who sat for less than 30 minutes had the lowest risk of death. Those who sat for more than 13 hours had a 200% higher risk of death than those who sat for less than 11 hours a day. Similarly, people who had 30 minutes or more of uninterrupted sedentary time had the highest risk of death if their total sedentary time exceeded 12 and a half hours a day.
“So if you have a job or lifestyle where you have to sit for prolonged periods of time, we suggest taking a movement break every half hour. This one behavior change could reduce your risk of death, although we don’t yet know precisely how much activity is optimal,” says Keith Diaz, the researcher who coordinated the study.
Regular meals, rest, exercise, sleep, and time with loved ones are the investments that determine how full our lives are. When we set healthy boundaries around our work and make our family a non-negotiable priority, we are actually laying the foundation for long-term success in both our professional and personal lives, because only by separating the two will we have the time and resources to give them the attention they deserve.
Carmen Lăiu is an editor of Signs of the Times Romania and ST Network.
