After the latest series of COVID variants, labor shortages, and weather-related closures, that work from home virtual life is getting a little more permanent for many. Looking back two years ago, it is hard to fathom we would be entering 2022 with the topic of maximizing productivity from home still on the forefront of conversation. 

However, the converging of a new year and an extension of the work-from-home culture meant an opportunity to revisit a topic first discussed on our Drama Free Living podcast a few months ago. 

The episode featured our guests Jonathan and Charity Milligan and was part of our marriage series podcast where we interviewed couples who work together for a unique perspective on relationships. What arose from this conversation became perhaps less a conversation about a married working partnership and more about balancing your time. 

That is where the podcast conversation and today’s subject matter align.

In the fluid working world we are experiencing today, even if you are still in the office and your working environment pretty much looks like it did in 2019, our understanding of time is simply different. Those of you who are working in a “typical” work setting are still having to contend with vendors or clients living a remote working life, supply chain hiccups, or maybe you have been sidelined temporarily due to a school or exposure-related closure. The fact is, these past two years have been “normal” for no one in regards to the way in which we work. 

Now, we wait longer for things we need. We squeeze moments of productivity into odd hours if our kids are home and require our supervision. At times, we overwork because we are lonely or have lost all sense of normal boundaries set by the goings and comings of commuting life. Our concept of time is more fluid than perhaps it ever has been as a professional society. 

The five-day work week was broken in 2019 and it is broken now in 2022 when so many boundaries surrounding time have gone entirely gray. However, there is an opportunity for innovation when you are no longer physically punching the clock from 9 – 5 in an office setting where the structure is rigid. If you are strategic and disciplined, you can use this opportunity to set a new workflow for yourself that better aligns with your ideal lifestyle. 

At Leadership Development Group, we believe in the power of freedom of time. Freedom of time opens the door to using the gifts you were given in the way they were intended. A life where you use your gifts to the fullest and set your schedule (as much as possible) around the things that honor your family? That sounds like drama free living.

Setting clearly defined boundaries and counterbalancing are two crucial tasks, particularly when working from home. If you are working from home, set a space where work is to be conducted and where it absolutely is not. For us, a clear boundary means the bedroom is a no fly zone for business conversations. And counterbalancing can look like working on a Saturday morning so a weekday becomes clear for something unrelated to work at all. Of course, some careers do not allow for that kind of flexibility. But if there is any wiggle room in your output, think of how you could use this opportunity to restructure your business around your life instead of the other way around…

Once you build your business around your life, you will find flexibility and joy—and renewed passion for your work—that makes the drama disappear.