How we brought hustle culture to our homes and how to navigate our work-life balance while working from home
Do we really have so much on our plates?
“I’m done for this week. Today I can even move from the desk to the couch earlier.” read a message sent by a colleague after I’ve logged off of Skype for Business for the weekend. The message was sent on a Friday evening at 7 pm. And no, it was not a busy week; no, there were no pressing deadlines; no, it was not an exception, and she was not the only one staying “at work” too late, too often. I couldn’t help but wonder, did she really have so much on her plate (and if so, why didn’t she ask for assistance), or was this a prime example of hustle culture, and demonstrating how selfless and devoted to it she was?
Hustle culture and lockdown
By now, everyone is familiar with the term “hustle culture” – dedicating every possible minute of your day to your work, rising & grinding, not stopping when you’re tired, but stopping when you’re done. Erin Griffith rightfully asks: “When did performative workaholism become a lifestyle?” in her article Why Are Young People Pretending to Love Work? for The New York Times. Celinne Da Costa poses the question in a different manner: “Why the rush? What am I actually working towards?” in her article Stop Idolizing Hustle Culture for Forbes Media LLC. Well, you get the point – hustling is all about how you basically live at the office, how much you work, how busy you are, how many things you’re juggling, and how greatly proud you are of yourself for this.
Needless to say that 2020 has been a year marked by various health, socio-political and economic struggles. One would expect that these challenges, and the switch from office work to working from home would decrease the popularity and idolization of hustling and grinding. Quite on the contrary, it seems that we have brought the hustle culture home.
How did we bring the hustle culture to our homes, and what can we do about it?
I. Feeling confused by the “new normal” and overcompensating for the lost focus
Indeed, 2020 has been an unprecedented year. But while essential workers have been selflessly putting their lives in danger every day, and employees in the service industry have lost their jobs, people with regular office jobs have just shifted their 9-5 from their corporate office environment to the comfort of their home.
Unfortunately, being safe and sound at home cannot prevent you from existential unclarity and mental health struggles. You could be feeling like you’re not contributing enough in these challenging times, you could be worried for the people who are not that lucky to be able to work from home, or you could just be finding it hard to find your way in the “new normal.” All that might result in overworking yourself as a means to escape from these thoughts and feelings. At the same time, hustling might be a way to compensate for the times at work when you’ve lost your focus and concentration.
A study of Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) published in the journal JAMA Network Open and cited by ScienceDaily on September 2, 2020, found that COVID-19 has likely tripled depression rates. “Depression in the general population after prior large scale traumatic events has been observed to, at most, double,” study senior author Dr. Sandro Galea, Dean and Robert A. Knox Professor at BUSPH says.
How to deal with it
A report on Mental Health, Substance Use, and Suicidal Ideation During the COVID-19 Pandemic by Czeisler MÉ, Lane RI, Petrosky E, et al. published on August 14, 2020, on the webpage of Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests that “Community-level intervention and prevention efforts should include strengthening economic supports to reduce financial strain, addressing stress from experienced racial discrimination, promoting social connectedness, and supporting persons at risk for suicide. Communication strategies should focus on promotion of health services and culturally and linguistically tailored prevention messaging regarding practices to improve emotional well-being.”
On a personal level, this might mean implementing practices for our mental health, as well as checking on the people we love to make sure they are doing fine. In this sense, overworking ourselves is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. Next time, when the “hustle culture” ideas and habits try to get to you while working from home, make sure to take the time to acknowledge them, make peace with them and try to let them go.
II. Adjusting to WFH and proving accountability
While for some, working from home is a standard and preferred way of working, others have never had the chance to do their job from the comfort of their home. When we first think of working from home, we think of not having to dress up for work, saving time when “commuting” from our bed to the desk, instead of driving for an hour or switching subways and buses, and avoiding the elevator small-talk (and probably some unnecessary meetings that now can be an e-mail). However, it appears that these mundane routines help us switch to “work mode” and maintain our everyday work dynamics.
Wearing pajamas all day and working on your laptop from the couch might be a seductive idea, but it will only get you so far. While you’re all comfy at home, and you don’t attend multiple meetings a day, it might be difficult to feel productive. You might cross off all tasks on your to-do list, but the lack of visibility across your team for the amount of work you’re doing might make you feel like you need to do more in order to prove that you’re staying on top of your projects. Soon, extending your work hours to deal with as much work as possible starts to feel like a good idea, and all of a sudden, your life revolves around your job. Needless to say this is not a sustainable approach for the long run.
How to deal with it
Set clear boundaries of when your working day starts and when it comes to an end. This might include implementing little habits like showering and putting together a decent outfit, setting up your desk in a way that feels the most professional, and taking breaks according to schedule. A recent post by Cathy Cassata for Healthline even suggests adding a “fake commute” to your WFH schedule that can help you get in the right frame of mind – either prepare for the working day or unwind after the busy day at work has come to an end.
If you live with flatmates or members of your family, you might also want to remind them that your working hours are fixed, and you’d like to be undisturbed during your working day, so you can get to finish work on time and spend the rest of the day engaging in other activities.
When it comes to accountability, you should just get to terms with the thought that there cannot be 100% visibility across your projects even if you were working from the office. Bosses and team members should encourage a culture of mutual trust and debunk the myth that the busier you are (or pretend to be), the more work you are doing.
Implementing some software tools for transparency on the work projects like Asana, Wrike, or Monday.com might also be a good idea, as well as scheduling regular tag-ups with your coworkers to make sure you have dedicated time to exchange ideas, discuss current topics and stay on top of the company life.
III. Hustle culture and mindset trick you into thinking there are no better alternatives
We all have days when our job is more demanding than usual, our tasks are challenging, and it feels like our work takes all of our mental real estate. On days like this, we don’t feel like doing anything besides just getting the job done, and we continue working until we’re completely drained. Project deadlines, quarterly targets, and yearly business reviews are an important part of each corporate environment, however, you should not use them to justify neglecting the other aspects of our life. It’s okay to have a few extra busy days once in a while, as long you don’t let the days turn into weeks, and the weeks into months.
Furthermore, once you get into the mindset of working long hours, and overworking yourself, it might become difficult for you to imagine what else you could be doing with your time. A feeling of guilt might creep in, making you think: “Why would I ___ (insert pleasant activity here) when I could be working?”. What you don’t realize is that what feels to you like “grinding” might be just wasting your time on minor activities. Remember the Pareto Principle(The 80/20 Rule)? Generally, the Pareto Principle is the observation that most things in life are not distributed evenly, and 20% of the input creates 80% of the results. The article Understanding the Pareto Principle sums up perfectly how this principle can be applied to hustling: “Each additional hour of effort, each extra worker is adding less “oomph” to the final result. By the end, you are spending lots of time on the minor details.”
How to deal with it
The good news is, if you’re already making sure to separate your work life from your personal life and taking care of your mindset and mental health, hustling wouldn’t be an attractive idea. If you, however, still feel like working is the only productive thing to do at home, you might use a little help (from yourself).
In order to understand how detrimental hustle culture could be to your personal and professional life, you should first acknowledge how it affects you. Do you feel like nothing much is happening in your life? Do you feel like you’ve lost connection to your loved ones? Do you feel tired, but in a way guilty if you want to take a break? After having reflected on these questions, you will surely recognize a pattern in your working behavior. Next step is considering how to replace these ‘bad’ patterns with better ones. Here are some suggestions:
- Make a list of all things you like to when you are not working. Are you into fitness, cooking, or crafting? Do you have any particular hobby that you can practice at home? Next time when you wonder if you should stay at work longer, take a look at the list and see how many options you have to do something you truly enjoy.
- If none of the regular things you’d do when not working seem exciting, be adventurous! Think of all things that you never had time to do – learning to play an instrument, learning a language? How about signing for an online course?
- Schedule calls with the people who are important to you. It might feel unnatural at first to have scheduled meetings, which are not associated with work, but soon you will start looking forward to having a drink with your girls on Skype or virtually watching a football game with your boys.
Conclusion
As established, work-life balance is a sensitive subject not only due to the popularity of hustle culture, but also because of all challenges associated with the time we live in.
Especially in 2020, being preoccupied, rushing all the time, and keeping ourselves unnecessarily busy, should not be something to be proud of and to brag about.
Instead, we should pay close attention to our mindset and mental health, and work, live and shape our reality with intention.
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