Work from Home is easier said than done.
Here are a few ways of perceiving and a few thoughts.
a) This is just a change of scene.
We are used to different ways of being as well. We are not the same at work and home. We appear to be more purposeful and focused at work. We experience ourselves as free beings at home. When you settle down for work at home, the being has to be chosen for the doing. To be a free being for work is a reservoir of possibility. What we put in by way of free will and pure intention can create new realities.
b) I will be as productive as before.
The context and circumstances that necessitated work from home continue to have a powerful impact on everything, society and work included. Acknowledging the power of context is important. When you know that a pandemic is out of control and lives are being lost, the anxiety and the uncertainty get to you. You will be less productive, but more reflective. The meaning of work, its imperative can be trails you decide to explore. You will feel about work, and that in its own way, can lead to deeper productivity after a lull.
c) I must function exactly as I do in the office
An office creates its own context for people to order their lives. A home, you are invited to create the context for your own work. If you seek to simply replicate your office routine, you are losing the creative opportunity of context-shaping that in turn will create a different working experience. If you sleep for an hour in the afternoon, what happens? The opportunity to work from home enables us to unlock value and create new value that is not pegged to the hours put in, but the quality of the outcome. Can we reappraise work itself – it is a promising question.
Work and Home are held to be different compartments of life and our conditioning has made us inflexible. This is a time to explore what work and home means to us – as individuals, as organisations, as society? This exploration will unearth a lot of our meaning-making structures around jobs, livelihood, workplaces, community and more.
Organisations are invited to do their own exploration. If they cherish mindful beings, they will be invited to look within and become mindful communities themselves and ask : Does our work liberate people and free them to be their best selves?