Debunking the dream of working from home

By: Michael Beiter

Debunking the dream of working from home.

When we had to slow the spread for two weeks, everyone jumped for joy. It was like we got a national vacation.

Fast forward half a year and the novelty wore off.

I've studied context switching and multitasking extensively. Both of which were asked out of the population at large who could work from home. It didn't take long before the evidence was clear: it didn't work.

Context switching is the idea that we go to certain places to do certain things. Most people have a 15-mile bubble around where they live that they travel around and live their life.

You may walk into the coffee shop and once you smell the coffee and the door closes behind you the context of what you're there to do is clear: drink coffee, socialize, or plug in and work.

When I walk into my office it's like I flip a switch. The context is simple, I'm here to work and serve my clients. When I walk out of my office onto the gym floor the context changes, I either am going to the bathroom or start to exercise.

The pandemic forced a national experiment where our bubbles shrank from 15 miles to about 2500 square feet.

We were asked to work, socialize, exercise, rest, and do everything else that sustains our lives under one roof in about 2500 square feet.

For a lot of people, the idea of working from home was utopian and represented the next shift in working life.

Unbeknownst to them, the skills needed to combine all the contexts of your life in one facility are hard to come by and take a lot of practice to develop.

The solution proposed was multitasking. I don't know why this is still thought of as a solution because the research is clear, the more tasks you do at once the shittier you do each one.

So when you woke up and had coffee while preparing for work but your dog needed to be let out, your kids interrupted your thought process, and you had to choose between sitting down for lunch and getting a workout in you fumbled it all.

It's not your fault, you were never taught the skills of how to shift between the contexts of work, play, rest, etc. They don't come naturally, they have to be practiced and developed, like a free throw or a golf swing.

Now, dozens of my clients are getting back to their routines of living in their bubbles and going to one place to do one thing before going to another place to do another. We've grown up doing this, as have our parents and theirs before them.

So don't feel bad if you crave the gym for workouts, the restaurant for meals and socializing the office for work, and your home for rest and family. That's how it's supposed to be.

The whole 'do everything from home' movement failed for most people.

The science of content shifting and multi-tasking easily explains why.