Q: They say when you want something you will find a way to make it happen. I want to lose weight but I cannot see a way to fit in exercise while being a mother of three children and working remotely. Please help!
Perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions about working remotely is the idea that you have more time. Remote work can become invasive.
Just recently, I was talking to a colleague and reminiscing about the bad old days, when we would work from the office. In my industry, we were always allowed to work remotely but the unsaid expectation was to show face and conduct brainstorms and team meetings in person.
We spoke about how we would schedule time to drive to a client’s office. We would talk and plot out our plans in the car. When we arrived, we would meet the client and perhaps have some coffee as we waited for the boardroom to empty. We would regroup on the drive back to the office and plan our next steps. That commute was not lost time; it was time to think and plan.
The difference now is that everyone knows you are remote and there is an unsaid expectation that you are available. Calendars are booked up with back-to-back virtual meetings, but the emails don’t stop. Perhaps the worst development is the dreaded WhatsApp group.
There’s always someone who doesn’t understand boundaries, assuming that 8pm, 9pm, 11am on a Sunday is OK, and sometimes this person — especially if in a position of power — expects responses. I can’t tell you how many times I have been cheering for my son on Saturday mornings, trying to record snippets of him on the rugby field, only for work WhatsApp groups to light up in a frenzy.
Delightfully, the last WhatsApp group I was added to has a rule in the group’s description: “No expectation of responses after hours except in the case of a crisis.” Define crisis.
My industry tends to wake up at 4:55pm because this is the first time people can breathe because of the back-to-back virtual meetings. Many times, I have been in the gym in the evening only to catch a glimpse of a notification that spoils my workout.
This has happened when I trained before work hours or after work hours. In some instances I just walked out to deal with the non-crisis that the panicked person on the other end deemed a crisis. For a while my training and fitness genuinely suffered.
The only way I overcame this was to leave the phone behind or on silent in my pocket. It took immense discipline to de-avail myself from work during my own self-care time.
Being a remote worker, I am called on to do the school runs. The implicit suggestion is that I can move meetings because I am remote, which inevitably means starting earlier or finishing later.
I understand your conundrum. Your children’s school will continue to be demanding. The only thing you have control over is setting personal boundaries. Speaking to a psychologist a few years ago, I learnt that boundaries are not selfish, they are essential, and without them you will work yourself into a nervous wreck.
Choose a time to train. If it is between 5.30pm and 6.30pm, so be it. Block it out on your calendar as repeat events. If it means your spouse needs to step up and help more regularly with preparing dinner, then so be it. I find that splitting the week’s dinners works amazingly well — if you commit to cooking on Mondays and Wednesdays, you can have Tuesdays and Thursdays to set personal bests. Fridays work for everyone as the next day isn’t a school day, meaning you can start preparing food later — when you’re done training.
Don’t underestimate the power of weekend exercise. Saturdays become difficult with school sports and commitments, but in theory — if there are work-life boundaries — your days should be more flexible.
None of this is scientific, it’s just the result of trial and error since the pandemic changed everything. Yes, your in-office colleagues face the daunting commute, but that doesn’t mean when they’re sitting in traffic you should be attending to unreasonable demands. Reclaim your commute, except this time, do it in sneakers and work up a sweat.
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