Creatures of Habit

Habits dictate so much of our behavior.  This past week I’ve been returning to my office.  Cushman & Wakefield has a beautiful office on the 23rd floor of a downtown high-rise.  My personal space there affords me a view of the San Francisco bay.  I have every reason to rush back to the office – not the least of which is that helping companies lease office space is my business.

My Downtown Office

My At-Home Office

Yet my habit for the past year+ has been to work from home.  And, to be honest, it hasn’t been horrible.  I’m fortunate to have a set up that is conducive to work.   The biggest difference is what happens in the mornings as we prepare to get the kids to school, walk the dog and (now that I’m going back to the office) shower and put on real clothes.  The mornings become more chaotic.  Of course, my dog can’t come to the office with me - - - he has enjoyed sleeping at my feet while I work.

Humans are habitual.  And we often seek to avoid change.  I wonder how much of the angst around return to office will simply go away once we’ve been back for a couple of weeks.   In fairness, we changed a lot about how we spend our days.  I bet many of us will rediscover the benefits of being together with our colleagues and being at work, away from home.  While there’s been elements of work from home that have been positive, I confess to struggling to create balance and separation between work and home life.  There’s a feeling that work never ends; whereas when you physically go to the office to work and then leave to go home, you get that separation, both physical and mental.

I choose to look at this as a learning opportunity that is going to positively reshape how and where people work. But one of the insidious aspects of technology is how it enables us to work from anywhere, all the time.  Regardless of where we choose to work, we must have the ability to “turn off” our work and disconnect.  This is increasingly challenging, perhaps even more so after this past year.