Comments from Kathryn, the author of this blog and a licensed clinical social worker: One of the topics that comes up in therapy is poor boundaries that people may have between home and work. In such a fast-paced world that already blurs the boundaries between home and work, two new terms have emerged: digital nomads and bleisure. A digital nomad is someone who works from home. Bleisure is a smash-up word of combining a work trip (business meeting or a conference) with a vacation or relaxation (leisure).
Blurring Work and Home
There is no denying that starting in 2020 Covid changed how people do many things, for example, how people interact with others, how and where they do their work and how they enjoy their nonwork time.
Since 2020 two terms have become more prevalent and universally accepted: digital nomads and bleisure. If someone is able to maintain healthy home-work boundaries, it won’t matter where they work, and it won’t matter who is with them on a business trip. That person could be productive anywhere.
That is not true for everyone. Sadly, many people struggle with working from home. There are too many distractions and demands at home for work to be a priority. Some of those demands could be young children or no designated space to work quietly.
Digital Nomads
Some sources say that in Washington D.C., only 6% of the workforce has returned to their offices since they were sent home because of Covid in 2020. If this is true, or even remotely true, a significant portion of government employees have found a way to complete the requirements of their job while never leaving the comfort of their home.
They have become digital nomads. They work from home, or “WFH”.
These individuals can work anywhere with a phone/computer and high-speed internet. This flexibility allows people to work their traditional jobs from home or vacation areas. A perfect example of this was during Covid, people fled New York and Massachusetts to a vacationland, Maine.
Some digital nomads, even after four years, have never returned to the office!
The Benefits of Being a Digital Nomad
During the height of Covid, many employees were forced to work from home or not work at all. For many, this way of work became a lifestyle for them. They balked at returning to the office. Many people enjoy being digital nomads. Some businesses very much like employees working from home because they do not have to pay for workspace.
Benefits of being a digital nomad include:
- You can be in a familiar setting all day
- No one (supervisors or co-workers) is staring over your shoulder
- You don’t have to dress formally everyday (at least from the waist down when you have a Zoom call!)
- You can recoup a significant financial gain from not having to drive or take public transportation to and from home.
The Downsides of Being a Digital Nomad
Not everyone is cut out to work from home. This is especially true for very social individuals (they get lonely), people who are easily distracted (it is hard to stay focused on work when you know you have a pile of laundry to fold), or you are a new or young employee who requires a lot of direction in the completion of a project.
Downsides of being a digital nomad include:
- Isolation from co-workers
- Possible decrease in productivity if you are not self-motivated
- Blurring of home-work life
- Distractions
- Lack of support from a supervisor or mentor
Bleisure
Someone who experiences bleisure is someone who routinely works out of a stick and brick office. On occasion they will travel for their business, for example, to attend a meeting or a conference in a distant locale.
People who use a bleisure model are combining business (“b-“) and their leisure (“leisure-“) time. They may choose to attend a conference in a location they and perhaps a spouse or significant other would like to explore or visit, for example, Las Vegas or NYC. The primary focus is still business with some leisure time thrown in as an added bonus.
The Benefits of Bleisure
Many people enjoy traveling for business as it “gets them away from the house” (or office) and any of their other responsibilities. For others, adding leisure to a business trip can actually make the business trip a more pleasant experience.
What bleisure looks like is that while you are at a conference or attending a business meeting, your family is off visiting the Zoo or Disney. Then, when you are done with your conference or business meeting, you can rejoin your family!
Benefits of bleisure include:
- Reducing the amount of stress that is accompanied with travelling solo
- Less time away from the family
- Possible increase in morale of the employee
- Improved productivity because the employee is more relaxed during the business meeting
- Fun together.
- Decreased guilt and less time spent away from family (or work!)
- Fewer trips and carbon emissions by combining business travel and vacations
- Less expensive for the employee, since the company is paying for the hotel and all ground transportation.
- Elimination or reduction in jealousy by having the family along if there might have been infidelity on a previous business trip
The Downside of Bleisure
- Increased work and family guilt
- Fewer opportunities for networking after your conference or business meetings if family is with you
- Your focus is split: are you away for business or leisure?
- Blurred lines between allegiances for business and pleasure
- Potential burnout from trying to do too much in a short amount of time
Take Away Point
What ties these modern-day work terms together are the blurring between work and leisure and the increased demand for multitasking. While this blurring might not seem to be a problem for some, for others being a digital nomad or partaking of bleisure is a severe hit to the quality of familial relationships or productivity at work.
With warmest regards,
Thank you so much for reading this blog. If you enjoyed the content, please check out other blogs at:
https://relationshipsrelearned.com/my-blog/
https://rvingnomads.com/blog/
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