The expectations and my reality when it comes to remote work

When thinking of remote work one would say that is the best thing possible as you can simply work a bit and enjoy your day afterwards or even during work hours. That's the expectation at least or even if not something that one can say officially, it is something that for sure is on everybody's mind. And it was the same on mine as during the summer I am allowed for more remote work rather than going to the office once a week. With this window of opportunity I have decided to move for about one month at the seaside flat and I was hoping to enjoy it like a vacation. Well, I am now in the second week here and things are not panning exactly like that as the reality is a bit different. So let me just tell you about it.

Morning meetings are a real pain point for me. This simply blocks me for taking a swim in the morning as whenever I tried to do so I only could swim for about half an hour, go back to the flat and take a shower, after which jump straight into the meeting. That leaves me almost no time to prepare myself or to finish what I didn't complete the day before. Thus, in ten week days I could only go to the beach in the morning only once.

Now let's move to the afternoon. One would think that there is more free time with it, but guess what? Meetings are also in the afternoon alongside with work that needs completion in that day in order to do the software release to the client. Sometimes I can escape it around 6 PM and I think I get about one hour of enjoying the sun at the beach and swimming.

Even in these conditions whenever I take a brake and enjoy the scene, there is still in the corner of my mind that the boss might be looking for me or that suddenly a problem rose up that I need to deal with it. Thus it is not like I can fully disconnect from work which makes in the end not to enjoy the "free" time as much.

The weekend is the one that saves and that's when I don't even connect at work or any teams or social app where anyone from work can ping me. I feel that even if it is a high paying job, it is quite demanding and working with my brain day after day really takes it tall on me. I hope to make AI my second brain to cope with that 😀, but probably it will take a bit until I will be able to do so. And when that will be possible, my plan is to finish my tasks faster and be less stressed about the deadlines and the only thing remaining for me is to report back: done. In these days while I feel that I need to be seen in a good light by the boss and company, I need to be strategic about my work and even if I finish earlier to take my time with it. Otherwise the demand will increase and there will be no work - life balance. So, while the remote work sounds amazing and in some parts of that it really is, my experience is that I still have a limited time that I can use for myself; and I cannot fully disconnect from work until the clock gets me signed out for the day.