When What Worked for You Stops Working: Rethinking Work-Life Boundaries
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash
TL/DR:
Spaciousness looks different for different folks. One person spreads their workday out. Another packs the workday tight and keeps evenings, weekends, and vacations wide open.
Segmentors thrive with hard boundaries between work and home. Integrators thrive with fluidity between the two.
Your boundary style isn’t fixed. What worked in one season of life could have been a smart coping mechanism, not a permanent trait.
Notice what works for you right now, in this season, instead of clinging to what worked before.
The Whole Shebang:
Today, a friend shared about an amazing work opportunity that she’d won, after she got an email on vacation and then took a call and sent out a proposal. On vacation.
And I was so happy for her. But my first thought was “that would never be me; because I wouldn’t have seen that email until I was back from vacation.”
And that got me thinking.
A while back, a friend and colleague of mine wrote a post about the concept of “spaciousness” in his day.
The basic gist was that he feels better when he’s not rushing, when he has ample space between meetings, when his day feels the opposite of compacted.
And if you asked me at the time if I like spaciousness, I’d have said “Yes, I like spaciousness. A lot.”
But yet, the way he arranges his days is not, at all, the way I arrange my days. Or rather, the way I used to.
(Because, me, I’m in a sort of transitional period. And, if I’m being honest, a pretty uncomfortable one.)
I used to arrange my days in a back-to-back fashion.
Yes, I made sure I had 10 minutes in between meetings
(Or, at least, I tried. My self-sabotaging trait might be that even though I schedule my client sessions for 50 minutes, if my client isn’t done talking, or has an extra question, my impulse is to be generous with my time in the moment, even if I know, when it’s happening, I might regret it. But I digress).
My days were quite compact. And I liked it that way.
But I feel myself shifting. And I feel a little unmoored.
I used to have such hard boundaries between work and play. But they’re softening. And it feels strange.
I still focus hard. But I also give myself grace for tangents.
I plan. I time block. But I’ve increased the amount of buffer in my schedule.
My weeks? My months? My evenings? My weekends?
They’ve always (well, almost; I mean, I do have kids, so not ALWAYS in the strictest sense of the word) been spacious as hell!
No work. No email. (Hence, why I would have missed the opportunity my friend pursued on vacation!)
I exercise, I cook, I read, I watch TV, I crochet, I go to the pottery studio, I take walks with my family.
That “off-time” time feels languid.
I used to feel so strongly that:
When I’m on, I’m on.
And when I’m off, I’m truly off.
And that second part is still 100% true. But that first part? Well, I’m starting to loosen the reins a little. (Albeit not entirely intentionally!)
And as I think more about this, both the concept of spaciousness and the differing practical applications, I’m brought back to the dichotomy of the integrator vs. segmentor.
TL/DR:
A segmentor is someone who thrives with hard boundaries between work life and home life and an integrator is someone who thrives with fluidity between work life and home life.
The interesting thing is that, when polled, about 30% of folks self-idenify as segmentors, while the other 70% self-identify as integrators.
But here’s the kicker: only ½ of the integrators are true integrators, those that thrive with integration, while the rest would prefer stronger boundaries; it’s just that expectations (real and perceived) and technology make integration the path of least resistance.
Now, you might be thinking it’s strange for someone like me, who loves working at home, and who worked at home a decade before the pandemic made it a necessity, and who runs my own business, to be (er, have been?) a segmentor.
And maybe it is strange. Maybe it’s always been strange.
And maybe the shift I’m feeling now is more like alignment?
It used to be that when I mixed the two: work and home life, I’d start to feel out of control.
I’d start to feel put upon.
I’d start to enjoy my personal life less.
And I’d start to enjoy my work life less.
But now, I’m starting to let more life into work. (Even if not the other way around. haha!)
And it feels, dare I say it, spacious, to latch on to my friend’s word.
I don’t feel out of control. I feel more grounded.
Or, at least, I’m getting there.
And while I used to feel so sure about my “segmentor nature”, perhaps it was not something innate to my personality, but a coping mechanism (and a good one) for a different stage of life.
I wasn’t “wrong” before. And I’m not “right” now.
I didn’t misunderstand who I was (I don’t think!).
But as life changes. So do I.
And understanding what works for you (and me!), right now, in this season, instead of clinging to what worked in the past, feels pretty darn freeing.
