Lockdown life might be shifting a bit in the UK, but many people will still be doing most or all of life at home. We have been reflecting on how to differentiate between work and home life when it all takes place in one place. This builds on the thinking we’ve been doing in recent years about what healthier life rhythms look like. It comes after long periods of being too busy, filling evenings and weekends and running ourselves into the ground until a holiday, which would take us up to neutral but never quite into the positive. We have come to believe strongly in the notion of a day off. Not just a day without undertaking paid employment. A proper day off from all forms of work, including emails, messages, tasks around the house and errands to run outside, It will come as no surprise that often those days involved: good food, coffee shops, gardening, and of course, escape from the city to the coast. 

Some of these elements are not possible now in lockdown life; others take place differently. But with work and home all occupying the same four walls, it feels more important than ever to have a proper day off. And these principles – which will apply beyond lockdown life – are helping us to do so. Many of them we learned from other people. Some of them we do pretty well, others remain more of a challenge. We are, as always, a work in progress. 

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