Stop Treating Your Remote Work Setup Like a Situationship: Setting Boundaries for Your Sanity
By Nina — I'm the friend who tells you what you need to hear about your situationship. ·
Look, we’ve been doing this ‘work from home’ dance for years now, but let’s be honest: most of you are still acting like you’re in a situationship with your laptop. You’re available at 9:00 PM because you’re ‘just checking emails,’ you’re working from your bed because it feels ‘cozy,’ and you’re letting your boss’s Slack pings dictate your nervous system.
It’s exhausting, it’s unsustainable, and frankly, it’s exactly the kind of codependent mess I usually tell you to run away from. If your remote work life was a partner, would you stay? If they demanded your attention 24/7, blurred every line of your personal space, and made you feel guilty for existing outside of their needs, you’d dump them in a heartbeat. So why are you treating your career like it’s the only relationship that matters?
Stop Romanticizing the 'Work from Bed' Aesthetic
I see you on Instagram. The aesthetic coffee, the messy bun, the laptop balanced precariously on a duvet. It looks cute, but it’s a trap. When you work where you sleep, your brain loses the ability to distinguish between ‘grind mode’ and ‘rest mode.’ You’re essentially telling your subconscious that your sanctuary is actually a satellite office.
If you don’t have a home office—and I know, space in Brooklyn is a luxury—you need to create a physical boundary. Even if it’s a specific chair at the kitchen table that you only use for work. When you leave that chair, the laptop lid closes, the notifications get muted, and you go back to being a human being. Stop blurring the lines. You aren’t a ‘hustler’ for working from your pillows; you’re just someone who doesn’t know how to set a boundary.
The 'Available' Myth is Gaslighting You
Let’s talk about the ‘green dot’ anxiety. You think that if your status isn’t active, people will think you’re slacking. That’s not a professional standard; that’s a trauma response. If your workload is managed and your projects are hitting their KPIs, your status light is irrelevant.
I had a client last week telling me they felt ‘guilty’ for going for a walk at 2:00 PM. I asked them, ‘Did you miss a deadline?’ They said no. ‘Did you ghost a meeting?’ No. Then why are you holding yourself to an imaginary standard of performative availability? If you’re constantly proving you’re ‘working’ by being glued to your screen, you aren’t working; you’re performing. And just like a situationship, the more you perform, the less you actually get out of it.
Build a 'Commute' Ritual
One of the biggest things we lost when we went remote was the mental transition period. That 20-minute subway ride might have been annoying, but it gave you time to decompress and switch gears. Now, you’re in a meeting, you hang up, and you’re suddenly in your living room trying to figure out what to have for dinner.
You need a ritual to signal the end of the day. For me, it’s a 15-minute walk around the block, no phone, no podcasts. Just silence. For you, maybe it’s changing your clothes immediately, putting on a specific playlist, or lighting a candle. Whatever it is, do it consistently. You have to physically and mentally signal to your brain that the ‘work partner’ has left the apartment and it’s time to focus on your actual life.
Communication Isn't Constant Access
If your coworkers expect you to respond to Slack messages within thirty seconds, that’s a boundary issue, not a job requirement. I started using the ‘Schedule Send’ feature for everything. If I’m working late because I’m in a flow state, I don’t send the email until 9:00 AM the next day. Why? Because I’m not going to train my team to expect me to be available at 9:00 PM.
When you respond instantly, you’re setting a precedent that you have no life outside of your tasks. Stop doing that. You are a person, not a notification bot. If it’s an actual emergency, they’ll call you. If it’s not, it can wait until you’ve had your coffee and actually logged on for the day.
Be the Boss of Your Own Time
At the end of the day, you’re the only one responsible for your boundaries. Your company will take as much of your time as you’re willing to give them—that’s just how capitalism works. They aren't going to look at your calendar and say, ‘Hey, you’ve been doing a lot, maybe take the afternoon off.’ You have to be the one to say it.
Stop waiting for permission to have a life. Remote work is a tool, not a lifestyle. Use it to build a life you don’t need to escape from. If you’re feeling burnt out and tethered, it’s time to look at your setup and ask yourself: are you working, or are you just stuck in a situationship with your desk?
How are you holding up with your WFH boundaries? Are you actually logging off, or are you still lurking on Slack at midnight? Hit me up in the DMs—I want to hear about the boundaries you’re setting (or the ones you’re struggling to keep).