Pretend to Be Mister Rogers, and Other Ways to Separate Your Work and Life at Home
An “always on” existence can be extremely draining
When you work where you live, the effort to separate work life from personal life can feel like a bit of a performance: You’re hiding your PJs under a professional blazer, or throwing a green screen in front of your household mess. That’s why I’m going to take some inspiration from show business, and suggest six tactics you can use to create a bit more separation between work and home.
Make like Mister Rogers
Just as Mister Rogers made a ritual of changing from a jacket to a cardigan at the beginning of each episode, my grandmother had an end-of-day ritual of changing out of her business suit and into one of her many beautiful, free-form caftans. Even if you’re not heading to or from an office, this kind of costume change can be a mental cue that you’re stepping out of work mode and into personal time. After all, if you’ve washed off your makeup and changed into your jammies by 6 p.m., you may be a lot less tempted to squeeze in one last Zoom call.
Be a double agent
In movies and TV shows, double agents always use separate phones for their dual lives, so they don’t accidentally give intelligence…
