“I want to smack those people who say they’re spending all of this time binge-watching in the face,” a client recently told me. “Between work and juggling my family responsibilities, I’m totally smoked.”
I hear that a lot from leaders. That, and that they are surprised by how much they miss their daily commute. Based on how much we complained about commutes before WFH, who knew we secretly loved them?
But it isn’t because anyone digs time on the train or in bumper-to-bumper traffic. It’s because we used that time as a buffer, a time to transition from the demands of work to the responsibilities of home. In a way, we used that time for self-care.
Self-care takes many shapes. Another friend shared how she and her husband had to get an extra hour of sleep every night when they were expats in Russia. The stress of being in a different culture and dealing with the upheaval in their routines simply demanded it.
We’re expats in COVID world right now. Create new patterns of self-care, new rituals to provide space for you to manage yourself. It’s just as crucial as anything you’re doing at work or home.
Who knows, maybe these self-care habits will be worth keeping even after you start to commute again?
