Historically, work-life balance advice has all centered around keeping the one's personal life and work life separate. As people grow more stressed or burnt out at work, many attempt to implement stricter physical boundaries between the worlds in hopes of being able to “check out” of one role while at the other and alleviate some tension. Physical work-life boundaries often consist of things like no personal calls while at work, no work emails while at home, leaving the work phone at home during family or date night, and so on.
While people can put physical boundaries in place all day, it doesn’t stop their minds from wandering between the two worlds, which often can create more strain. For instance, while at a late night meeting, you may find yourself wondering about your kid's soccer game you’re missing or while at date night with your significant other, you wonder if that important email came in. These thoughts can be summarized by the psychology concept, “cognitive role transitions,” in which a person is actively engaging in one role while thinking about another.
In a given day, people experience a lot of cognitive role transitions, for instance, when you are getting dressed for work and you remember you need to buy more milk, or you are out with friends and you remember you forgot to switch the laundry before you left. Often cognitive role transitions quickly fleet from the mind and don’t cause feelings of stress or guilt. However, the struggle comes into place as people are putting pressure on themselves to prevent these transitions from naturally occurring. For instance, feeling guilty when you miss your kid's soccer game or scold yourself for thinking about work emails at dinner with friends or family.
The idea that work-life balance meant separation of worlds became so widely spread that a new term has been coined, work-life integration. Which basically expresses the same sentiment as work-life balance. In both cases, the idea is for people to get their needs met in a counterbalanced way to create a fulfilling life.
A recent study examined how cognitive role transitions influence employee work performance. The research concluded that employees who kept their work life and personal life highly segmented, with many boundaries between the worlds, experienced higher levels of depletion and stress. Employees who had fewer boundaries between the two worlds experienced more frequent cognitive role transitions in a given day, but weren’t as depleted or stressed as the more rigid sample. The researchers concluded that it appears employees who allow the worlds to intermingle, by doing things like taking personal calls while at work, are able to more efficiently navigate between the roles which led to a quicker recovery time and more productivity.
The study provided valuable insight into the way people look at and set up work-life boundaries in their lives. For employees, it’s important to give yourself permission to let the worlds intermingle, a likely reason the phrase “work-life integration” has gained popularity, which will ultimately make you more productive and give you space to create balance between the two that suits your lifestyle. Employers should also take note of these findings, as it’s likely the more flexible policies a company can put in place, the easier their employees will be able to navigate the cognitive role transitions, and ultimately lead to better productivity for the company. By developing functional ways to integrate the worlds, whether it's taking the occasional call for one role while in the environment of the other, working flexible hours, or practicing self-forgiveness when the two worlds collide, both the employee and employer can deeply benefit.
