The New Normal is a Time to Rethink the Old Ways
The upheavals to almost everyone’s work-life balance caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have engendered a slew of articles online on the best ways to manage working from home. There is now no shortage of advice, ranging from the sensible and practical (have a separate workspace if possible, keep clearly defined working hours) to the debatable (get dressed like you’re actually going into the office — personally, I would rather spend that time on something more productive, like having a quick catch-up with a loved one, or a cup of coffee).
“The New Normal” looks like it is here to stay, for the foreseeable future at least. We are all learning to cope, and finding ways to make it all work because it looks like things might not go back to the way they were for a while, if at all. And that is the possibility we have to consider.
Aside from the practicalities of juggling working from home with your actual home (i.e. “not-work”) life, we need to also be aware of the longer-term implications of working from home.
Whether we are aware of it or not, that physical and psychological differentiation between “home” and “workplace” is an important one.
Home, however you personally define it, is usually the place you “get back to”, a place where you can hang that professional face up when you walk in the door. This is especially true for people who work in IT or another customer service, hospitality, and other jobs where you have to deal with the public. Home is where you don’t have to smile if you don’t want to, or respond to emails or phone calls, or placate an irascible boss. Home is your sanctuary of peace from the demands the world puts on you.
Additionally, home, its contents, and the people in it is the reason why many of us go to work in the first place. It’s supposed to be our happy place, filled with the rewards of our labor, the laughter and familiar routines of kids’ school schedules, lively meal times, and lazy evenings around the TV or kitchen table, a place for weekend gatherings with friends and loved ones.
With “The New Normal”, this warm and happy place is now supposed to expand to include that outside world that we sometimes need respite from. Would this then become a factor in raising stress levels, with predictably deleterious effects not just on the quality of our lives as well as that of the work we do?
Quoting a recent survey by TELUS International of more than 1,000 employees in the U.S., Forbes reports that 4 out 5 home-based workers now find it hard to “shut off” in the evenings. 50 percent of the respondents stated that their sleep patterns have been interrupted by the pandemic, and almost everyone — 97 percent of all respondents — said that even when working from home, it is important to take vacation days to “recharge”, i.e. taking time off for the sake of your own mental and physical well-being. There is no doubt that the coronavirus crisis has created massive amounts of stress, anxiety, and uncertainty for home-based workers. The survey recorded 45 percent of people saying they feel less healthy mentally while working from home.
It is a scary possibility that what is now only “The New Normal”, with its implications of temporariness, of one day everything returning to the way things were, is only an illusion. Let the coronavirus crisis persist long enough, and “The New Normal” is going to be the “normal” normal, going forward. If so, what then?
I think that waiting for something to happen could be one of the biggest stress-generating factors in our lives. While we are waiting for something to happen — in this case, for the pandemic to be over, for the world to go back to the way it was pre-2020 — we are not really accepting the way things are.
But how can we be sure that our lives will go ever back to what they were? It may not. Life may not be the same again, holidays may not be the same, the work-life will not be the same again but why not welcome this change with a smile on our faces and enjoy the new and renewed normal.
Some may see it as being fatalistic, but I would also call it a practical and optimistic way of looking at things. We need to stop waiting for things to go back to what they were, and start accepting the current situation the way it is, right now.
The first step to progress, after all, is an acceptance of the reality of our circumstances, so that we may learn to deal with things under this particular set of circumstances, and not any based on wishful thinking. But while we tend to accept it, we should also plan and take proactive actions for the negative aspects of adopting the practice of working from home in the long run.
New situations require new approaches. We cannot handle the new normal in old ways. The new approaches might even be an improvement on the old ways we did things. For example, this new situation might be an excellent time for us to re-think how we are currently living our lives, and how we would like to better live them.
Have you ever thought to yourself, “I’d love to do that, if only I had more time!” Well, guess what? Like many people around the world, you now do have that extra hour or so in your day, freed up by not having to commute between home and the office! What will you do with this precious gift of time?
Here are some of the possibilities:
● Get into a hobby you once loved, or find a new one. Try out yoga, tai chi, or meditation.
● Start a morning ritual with your family — cook a healthy breakfast from scratch, go for a walk, play a sport together
● Take an online course to update your skills
George Bernard Shaw once wrote: “Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
Sure, this pandemic has brought so much change in our world. Life as we knew it no longer exists. The question that now remains is simply whether we will seize this opportunity to grow and evolve into better, stronger versions of our old selves, or keep wishing for things to go back to the way they were.
