Remote work erases the built-in boundaries of office life. Without deliberate structure, your workday becomes a formless blur where your kitchen is your meeting room and your couch is both rest and email.
Offices create boundaries you don't have to think about. There's a commute that marks the start and end of work. There's a time when people arrive and leave. You dress a certain way, sit at a certain desk, eat lunch at a certain time. That physical separation reinforces mental separation automatically. Remote work strips all of this away, and unless you actively build your own structure, your day dissolves into one long, formless blur.
The article argues that remote work doesn't automatically deliver the work-life balance people imagine when they picture flexible hours and no commute. Without the enforced rhythm of an office, your spaces blend together in dangerous ways. Your kitchen becomes your meeting room. Your bed becomes your office. Your couch becomes a place where you both rest and answer emails. This spatial blending creates mental confusion about when you're working and when you're not.
For managers specifically, this problem intensifies because you're responsible for your team's output and well-being while managing your own boundaries. The piece explains that managers burn out without realizing it because the slow erosion of boundaries feels normal in remote work. There's no obvious moment when work has consumed your life because it happens gradually, one blurred boundary at a time. The flexibility that makes remote work appealing is the same thing that makes it dangerous if you don't actively protect your time and space.
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