Life/Work Balance During a Pandemic

I work technology every day. It's a passion! For the most part, my goal is focused on helping people improve the way they work with tools like Microsoft Office 365.

Hi, I'm Crystal. This is me hosting a Teams training during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The picture is from a video that was posted on Good Morning America. When I tell people about how I can work from my iPhone, I sometimes get a weird look and a common rebuttal that if mobile apps are on my phone, then I am destroying my work/life balance. I strongly disagree with this sentiment, but in the name of research I took it as a challenge.

I wanted to test this theory personally with what I called "Crystal's 2020 Unplugged Challenge". It had been almost 2 years since I started with my team and I had never had a reason to unplug. I enjoyed staying connected with the team while traveling. It's a Modern Workplace experiment to test new technology and features from anywhere. While some folks spun down across the country many IT professionals have increased productivity to support the new remote workforce. My work is very rewarding but still... everyone needs to take time to unplug, right?

I talked with my coworkers and manager about the idea and everyone was so supportive. It felt great to know that they were happy to hold down the fort while I unplugged.

May 19, 2020 End of the Day Post on Teams

I'm unplugging for a few days of PTO. I'm challenging myself to completely disconnect for 5 days. Even typing that sentence seems really crazy, but I think I can do it. Work life balance is important to me and I'm going to prove it to myself by focusing on family, goals and creative pursuits.  

Steps I took to Unplug

Uninstalled the mobile apps (I can reinstall in less than a minute)

Set my Out of Office Response

Posted a Reminder in my Department Teams site to remind coworkers

I'd love to come back to some cool stories of how you practice work/life balance. Share them below and I will respond and to everything when I return. You can also share a future vacation destination. For example, if I was able to travel, I'd go to Los Angeles to work on music. How about you?

Okay, so Wednesday was a nail biter. I usually have most of my status meetings that day and felt worried that I would miss something critical. Luckily my son and daughter had a lot of great games and distractions for me, like online school work. The days moved very slowly during my social distanced stay-cation and I enjoyed every hour of the time off by practicing the art of doing nothing, making music, playing pretend, participating in nerf battles and cooking with new recipes. By Friday I was comfortable with this routine and went into the weekend with this confident feeling of "our team's got this or they would call me if something was on fire". Feeling relaxed isn't the most natural experience for me. I'm always on the go and always knocking out action items, but this change of pace reminded me why I work.

I work to support my personal goals, improve the world around me and most importantly to provide for my family.

May 25, 2020 The Last Day

Memorial Day went quickly. As the evening creeped in I was tempted to start working. My mind said, well it's going to be busy tomorrow so you can't just expect to hit the ground running after taking time off. The anxious temptation mirrored me trying to negotiate with my 4 year old that she doesn't need more candy. I decided to hold strong to my challenge and wait 8 more hours. I set the alarm for 6am and drifted off to sleep.

When I woke up to the sound of garbage collection on my front street, I looked at the clock. It was 5:50am and I opened the app store on my phone then downloaded Microsoft Teams, Outlook, OneDrive and Bookings. There are other apps, but I use these most often. It took less than a minute to re-install the apps on my device. *I use apps like Authenticator and Company Portal. I did not uninstall those because it would have made this process so much more difficult.*

The first thing I checked was the Teams post I made before unplugging. It was really cool to see the responses from colleagues. COVID-19 changed so much, like visiting family or attending services like wedding, funerals and graduations. Many people posted a reply of where they would like to travel and shared encouraging words. I took a few moments and composed my response to the thread.

May 26, 2020 Start of the Day Post

I reinstalled all of my apps at 6am. My first thought this morning was checking out these posts and admitting that I was tempted to check in on Teams but I resisted the urge. I unplugged completely for a total of 6 days. I did it! Life/Work balance challenge crushed!

Lessons learned about the tools:

1. Meeting chats gave me context for some of what I missed.

2. The activity feed listed everything that happened on our projects while I was away.

3. Teams calling has voicemail, so I can see who called, similar to a desk phone.

4. Bookings automated the process of commonly scheduled appointments for training and guidance for our team. 

5. MyAnalytics marked important follow ups in my weekly email.

6. FOMO or the fear of missing out is real. I missed talking to my coworkers and answering questions.

On a personal note, I was working a lot and loved it. I was skeptical of whether or not I could complete this challenge but I did it. My family benefited from the additional time spent together. I played a lot of music and put my phone down for hours at a time and nothing bad happened. To anyone who gets anxiety about taking time to unplug, it is worth it. Work will be there when you get back - and it is really organized!

These Lessons Learned are things that apply to every industry and every person. I believe that every person is here for a reason and can make an impact. While my work can be incredibly rewarding, I also have pursuits that define me outside of work. Unplugging shifted my thought process from work/life balance to life/work balance. The most important factor being that I want to keep up my vitality, invest in others around me and give back as much as possible while doing amazing work for my employer.

Mobile Apps: Why I Need Them for Life/Work Balance

In my time off, I also considered a few other ways to maintain this balance going forward. I considered leaving the mobile apps off of my phone for the rest of the week to test what people who aren't using them experience, but the flexibility and productivity I have with the mobile apps is far too critical to my workflow. For example, it doesn't feel great to sit in one spot for a long period of time, so using the mobile apps has allowed me to move around today.

Crystal's Daily Hustle to Maintain Balance (Using the Mobile Apps)

1. I took a quick walk during a Microsoft Teams call (that I was not leading).
2. I set my Quiet Hours from 7pm-6am so that my phone won't receive alerts during that time. (I can always open the apps if I need to).

In closing, I would do this again and recommend unplugging regularly or at least daily. The experience was helpful and I want to set a good example for my children of what is healthy by prioritizing my time to reflect all important areas of my life. This improves my sense of calm, confidence and helps me bring my best self to my work. So Life/Work Balance is a win for all.