Anyone else struggling with staying present after work hours?

2w ago·1 min read

I work from home and my office is literally 20 feet from the living room. My kids know I'm home but I'm still in meetings until 6pm most nights. By the time I close the laptop, I'm mentally fried and they want my attention. Wife thinks I should just be 'done' at 5 but my boss expects me available. How do you guys actually separate work from family time when the office is in your house?

4 comments185 views

Comments(4)

NNolan D.Regular2w ago

This is my reality too. I finally set a hard stop at 5pm and don't even look at Slack after that. It took a while for my manager to respect the boundary but my kids don't care about my excuses. They just want dad actually present at dinner.

JJustinRegular2w ago

Working from home with little ones is tough. I found that blocking calendar time to actually engage with them at certain points in the day helped. Even 15 minutes of real attention beats pretending to work while they pull on your pants.

RRyan M.Regular2w ago

The 20 feet thing is brutal. When I switched to working from home I had to literally put a door between me and the kids or they'd interrupt constantly. Now they know office door closed means I'm working, door open means I'm available. Game changer.

-1

LLuke M.Regular2w ago

Co-parenting made this harder for me because I felt like I had to be 'on' constantly during my time with the kids to make up for lost days. Still learning that being mentally present but not frantically productive is actually what they want.