A Complex Paradigm - Bringing Your Home, to Work
[HOME]work noun
\ 'hōm- wǝrk \
Definition of [HOME]work
: intentional effort; work done to prepare the home environment to be a functioning place of business, education and personal life conducive to the needs of all those in residence
Now all of the humans are at home. All of the time. And everything, even silence is being experienced in 4k high definition. We are now at an inflection point of co-habitation where very few of our homes are set up to be conducive to this new level of ‘on-demand’ activity occurring simultaneously under one roof. We have always understood the concept of bringing our work home. Now, we are consumed with navigating what would seem to be a simple yet complex paradigm - bringing our home, to work. We love our family or the humans we live with and the pursuit of quality of life through our jobs. Yet the sting of this instantaneous adjustment is sharp. With each passing hour of the day it is becoming increasingly apparent that we may be ill-equipped and in need of doing some much needed, [HOME]work.
Up until this moment in time, most of our homes existed primarily as a space to live – to shelter us, provide a place of rest, host our meals, serve as a space for individual or family leisure activities, raise a family, take care of loved ones and perhaps to allow one member of the household to occasionally or frequently get some work done. Architects designed the buildings – whether homes, apartments, condos, etc. Humans selected them with those intentions in mind. They furnished them with those intentions in mind. They picked roommates based on personal life considerations. Some chose to live alone to have privacy and physical distance from other humans. Most people have arranged and rearranged their living spaces as life circumstances changed or evolved over time. But the structures were not designed, built or furnished to function simultaneously as our personal home base as well as centers of commerce and education. This is what we’re working with in the US:
40% of US homes have children under 18 living in the house
20% of Americans live in a multi-generational household
25% between ages 18 and 34 have roommates
30% can work from home
All of these humans used to be at work or looking for work, at school, at football practice or piano lessons, caring for a parent, at the gym, at a PTA meeting, at church, out to dinner, on a date, getting a haircut - and the list goes on. Now all of these humans are home. All the time. A new set of skills is required to effectively co-exist and be productive in the newly formed, reluctantly launched co-working space previously called our homes. We didn’t have the luxury of doing the adequate amount of pre-work before we entered into this phase of life. Now, [HOME]work will be a necessary investment in our collective futures. [HOME]work is all about being intentional about the following considerations:
1. The physical environment around you
2. The relational environment with other humans in the space
3. The time investment required to create new patterns
Physical Environment
No matter the size or layout, we have all created zones in our homes where pre-determined activities can occur with the least amount of disruption. Most of the time, you don’t prepare dinner in the bathroom, or go to bed at night in the kitchen (well maybe you do if you live in a 150 square foot apartment in New York but that’s another article for a different day). We have painstakingly created physical zones with walls, room dividers or furniture that allow us and those we live with to understand what is supposed to happen in each zone. Maybe for those of you who are parents, you have a rule about where people are allowed to eat or where schoolwork is supposed to be done. If you live with a roommate maybe there are expectations about who is allowed to enter which zone to allow for privacy. We have all set both explicit and implicit rules about the zones and how to navigate them.
But now in the present moment the needs are completely different. Let’s say you’re a single parent with two kids. Depending on the subject and grade level, both kids need their own zone for school. You also need a zone to do video conferences work. So you need to figure out how you reconfigure your existing zones to make that work. Or you may have a partner in the house and you both have to be on video conferences, so you need two work zones. Or you have two roommates and two of you have to get on work calls but the third was laid off so is home all day. And across all of these scenarios, let’s not forget the all important “break zone.” The way your home is laid out physically may need to be reimagined to make it as palatable as possible for everyone who is trying to now live, work and educate within it. Sometimes in the moment, we make do with what is right in front of us. Someone stakes a claim for the couch or the dining room table becomes a desk. Making do with the existing configuration may be sustainable long term. But once you’re a few days into it, you may discover “Nope, this isn’t gonna work.” If you hit that wall, it could potentially turn into both a lack of productivity at work and also a tense environment. If the way your physical environment is set up won’t work for longer than a few days – do your [HOME]work and change it! Go through the exercise of understanding what everyone needs to be productive for work or school, and then think about how you can also factor in the necessary separation from work and school when the day is done. Maybe the couch is an easy place for someone to post up, but you collectively decide that space is going to be for family time at the end of the day instead. Maybe a kid’s room turns into an office during the day for one of the adults so the door can close to minimize noise and distraction. Perhaps if you live alone an area needs to be designated the work zone so you don’t wind up using your comfy bed as an office all day which can then make it hard to detach and get some rest. The existing physical environment does not mean the options box is empty for what it could be. If you would only pause long enough to be intentional about it. Don’t go it alone, get your fellow humans involved, whether it’s a partner, kids, roommates or a loved one helping through a video chat. Co-creating a physical space that works can be an opportunity to get everyone involved and give them ownership for what will inevitably be the new behavioral patterns required to coexist.
Things to consider:
What does each individual need and what do we need as a group of humans?
How can we re-imagine our physical space in a way that takes the needs of everyone into account?
How can we be creative and re-purpose rooms, shift furniture, or identify zones that allow us to create a new “human traffic pattern?”
Relational Environment
You are now getting a front row seat that is the 24 hour a day rhythm of those with whom you share a home. For many of us, this is a completely new experience and a completely new dynamic in our relationships. It is important to think about navigating these relationships as part of your [HOME]work. We all have patterns of behavior that shape how we go about our day and ways we like to do things that in a work or school context are invisible to those around us. It seems like some of us are seeing our humans for the first time in brand new ways. Tell me if any of this sounds familiar:
“Wow, does he always laugh that loudly on conference calls?”
“Well no wonder they are so tense all the time – that’s a lot of caffeine!”
“Why are they talking so fast?”
“She’s been on a conference call for an hour and a half and I haven’t heard her say a word.”
“Really? Does he have to print everything just to read it?”
“So this is how all of the scuff marks wind up on the dining room table.”
“Damn, I can hear the music through her headphones.”
“I just want to take a nap.”
Even more surprising is how we begin to notice ourselves and our own behavior patterns – “Apparently, I really need 3 screens in front me and a bunch of gear to get work done – even though I really don’t.” “Yes, I’m right, all of the time”. These patterns that previously may have been undetected quirks easily brushed aside are now intrinsic to how we manage our energy and productivity. Bottom line, we need to preserve and strengthen our relationships versus allow them to fray and fracture. That can only happen if we pay attention to each human, each individual relationship as well as the larger group dynamic and allow that to inform how we communicate and adjust.
Things to consider:
What do the other humans in your environment need to know about how you get work done that is really important to you?
How can you ensure everyone is on the same page around the sheer logistics of home operations?
What dialogues do you need to have with the other humans about what you need to function effectively?
If someone in your home was already working from home all the time, what dialogues should you have to understand how that individual was navigating the space that is now being disrupted?
What is the give and take equation for all humans in the home?
Time Investment
Your relationship with time and the control you have over it is a really important input that has changed. The boundaries of engagement looked different when you spent less time with the humans at home. You have 24 hours in the day and now you share them with the other humans in a much more interconnected way. To look at your physical environment differently, have dialogues to keep your relationships strong, allow all of you to be productive and sane and to intentionally design the new behavioral patterns in your home – that all requires an investment of time. Part of the important [HOME]work is to give the essential time needed to intentionally create the conditions that work for everybody. Morning routine, commute, work, evening commute, dinner – for a few generations we have had that macro template that allowed many of us to have a similar relationship with when things were supposed to happen in our homes. The time slots are now blurred. We don’t have a muscle for creating new time slots or co-managing time 24/7 with other humans. You get to create those boundaries and re-invest some of your time into managing the Physical and Relational Environments in order to sustain productivity in your home. That could mean replacing your commute time at the beginning of each day with a logistics check in with the other humans. It may mean making the time to have an important dialogue with your partner about what productivity needs take precedence. It’s possible that two hours of rearranging furniture to create a better flow is a better time investment than two episodes of Tiger King (just kidding, nothing is a better use of time than that). And let’s be honest, now that all the humans are home, chore distribution equity is a “thing” for roommates.
Things to consider:
Are you dedicating the finite time you have in a day to activities that allow for positive human interactions in your home?
Where have you re-invested the time you may be saving by not commuting, running errands, etc.?
Have you spent time in self-reflection thinking about your own patterns of behavior in the work environment and what you may need to adjust while at home?
No matter your situation, there are things you can do to manage through this challenging time. Remember to put humans first in this equation. Do your [HOME]work.
Listen to the Care More Podcast™ here: [HOME]work part 1
