Blurred Lines Between Work and Home is Hurting Our Health and Family Relationships

It seems it wasn’t that long ago that we came home from work, changed clothes, and had dinner as a family.  Our workday was done.  We knew that nothing would be expected of us until the next day.   Going back to, let’s say, the 1990s, there wasn’t an easy way for anyone to even reach us after work hours.

And so we actually talked to each other.  We had conversations.  Nowadays, this all sounds so unrealistic.

While the expectation to monitor work emails 24/7 has been increasing steadily, the pandemic shift to remote work has seemingly brought about a cataclysmic change in our work culture where we are now expected to be available 24/7.

A December 2020 study found that nearly 70 percent of professionals who transitioned to remote work now work on the weekends, and 45 percent say they regularly work more hours during the week than they did before.

For me, more and more work emails continue to fly in and out of my inbox 24/7, though now they are coming from the Court.

I’ve been practicing law for almost 30 years.  And up until the pandemic, court hours have been from 8:30 am to 4:30 p.m.  But when judges and court staff began working remotely, court emails started creeping into 5 pm and beyond.  This has only escalated even though judges and court staff are for the most part, back in the courthouses.

After having gotten sucked into the “always-on” mindset, I’ve made a concerted effort to “turn off” after work hours.

But just recently, in one of my divorce cases, emails between the court and the opposing attorney exchanged at 7:30 at night and 7:00 am the next morning resulted in the canceling of a court appearance that was necessary for my client to spend time with his kids.  Had I not emailed the court immediately during business hours, the father and kids would not have gotten to see each other.

This is just one example of how being available 24/7 has come to be the rule rather than the exception.

But the flip side is that while responding to late-night and weekend work emails might win us points professionally, it will cost us points at home.

Overall, blurring the lines between work and home is hurting our health and our family relationships.

I am guilty of this myself.  I cringe when I recall family vacations when my kids were young and I was off on a bench in an amusement park frantically scrolling through emails and returning non-urgent phone calls.  The part that really stings is that my kids remember it.

Feeling the need to check emails and be on 24/7 has absolutely affected my relationship with my family.  I’ve tried justifying it, but we all know better.  When we reach for our phones during dinner, on weekends, and in front of our spouses and kids, it can make them feel unimportant and as if they don’t matter to us.

So, it’s no surprise the need to keep checking our email folder for work issues is hurting our health and our relationships.  And it has become important for me to draw lines of separation between work and home, no matter how difficult it can be because I know it will be worth it.

If we re-prioritize family relationships, we can take back control by setting clear boundaries, communicating them effectively, and sticking to them.  For example, we can choose not to even check emails (yikes!) and set autoresponders after a certain time of day, during our kids’ games or events, or anytime with family.  Whatever you hold sacred in your life.

Because when we reply to emails within minutes of receipt, no matter the time or day of the week, we train everyone to see that we’re always on-call and immediately reachable.

The key is sticking to these boundaries.  I have found it incredibly tough to break the “always on call” habit.  But when I falter, I know I can simply begin again.

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Navigate Disagreements to Strengthen Your Personal and Professional Relationships

Disagreements arise as a natural consequence of differences in perceptions that we have with others.  Whether it’s a  romantic partner, friend, sibling, colleague, or co-worker, we each have different life and emotional experiences that form our perceptions of people and events now.

Basically, we have what this article calls naive realism – believing that the way we see the world is the way that it really is; naive realism is the feeling that our perception of the world reflects the truth.  In other words, we see what we want to see, especially when what we’re seeing is unclear.  Our brains seek out the need for certainty by filling in gaps in information to meet our prior experiences and emotions.

Disagreements are an inevitable, normal, and healthy part of relating to one another.  When you and someone else disagree, it is about the “something”, not about each other.

Conflicts, on the other hand, arise when disagreements have escalated to where one or both of you are now making assumptions about the other that are accompanied by strong negative emotions.

Conflict tends to involve yelling, accusing, interrupting, or even avoiding, which only makes things worse and can potentially damage the relationship.  The good news is that even where disagreements escalate to outright conflicts, we can take a step back.

It can be downright uncomfortable to tell someone that you see things differently, especially with a willingness to listen to their perspective and acknowledge that our “truth” may not be accurate.  This does not mean that we have to sell out or compromise our own basic principles.

I know all too well how incredibly difficult it can be to willingly admit when we’re wrong.  But I’ve also learned that if I always need to be right, that makes the other person wrong.  This only discounts their perspectives and feelings, which doesn’t bode well for any relationship.

When we can instead cultivate a habit of seeking out perspectives that differ from our own with a curiosity about our own blind spots, we can create deeper and more satisfying relationships, both personally and professionally.

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