to think WFH can completely change one's work life balance?

[LoveWFH]

I worked in an office full time for years and it always felt like my actual life had to be squeezed around work. The commuting, the constant rushing, the feeling of always being behind. I started a new role and now I WFH three days a week and the difference in balance is huge.

The biggest thing is how much more life I have now. I spend so much more time with DC and I am not constantly exhausted and snappy or trying to cram everything into evenings and weekends. I feel more present and calmer and like I am actually on top of things rather than permanently catching up.

Even Christmas was different this year. It is usually really stressful for me but everything was so much easier in terms of food, shopping and presents. I was organised and I did not have that last minute panic. It felt calmer and actually enjoyable.

It has helped my health too. My fitness levels have improved because I can fit exercise in more easily and it does not feel like yet another thing I am failing at. I also eat better now because I have time to cook proper meals rather than grabbing whatever is quickest after getting home late.

I have introduced lots of systems at work to make things run more efficiently, I passed my probation period and I have been offered a permanent contract. So it is not like I am doing less, I am just doing it in a way that leaves me with energy for my family and myself.

I understand that not everyone WFH is having this experience and for some it is really manic, busy and pressured all the time before people start rushing in.

AIBU to think WFH is not just a perk but something that can genuinely change your quality of life?

@ThePureso you have a particularly challenging manager and/or organisation? That feels quite an extreme position to take. I certainly don’t feel like that, but my work’s culture is healthy.

My organisation is leading the way in modern working. Not only is there no prescribed office working, we have an agile working charter. So performance is based on achievement rather than hours spent working.

I manage a large and committed team, most of whom have children with various responsibilities towards them. Our agile policy means that they can easily take time out for school runs, or sports events etc. Apart from the admin staff, none of them have to stick to set hours, nor weekly totals. They get their jobs done in whatever working pattern suits them and our customers.

What industry is this gum?

Shit for the admin staff though eh? Why are they singled out?

They are singled out because they have to cover operational/office hours which are 8:45 to 5:15. I try and give them as much flexibility between them as I can, there are 5 of them so they will cover for each other if something comes up.

No it’s not even them it’s me
My manager takes very little interest in my precise movements as long as things get done but I am a hugely disorganised person so with no external structure I just feel as though I have to be working and be available all the time in case I miss something. It’s just me and perhaps the nature of my job and the fact I never wfh pre pandemic, was transitioned in a hurry and never had any systems etc in place.
It’s also disadvantaged me even at work because I no longer have my own office or desk as it’s all hot desking now.

Sorry I was supposed to have written ‘do’ not ‘so’, it was intended as a genuine question.

So I would say it is within your gift to change that mindset? Sounds like the issue sits with you not your employer. I would talk it through with your manager. If I was your manager I would be concerned about your feelings and the impact on your wellbeing, I would want to support and reassure you.

It’s a game changer and a huge privilege to work from home.
I’m grateful every day for the shift and it becoming common ( took a global pandemic but that’s another issue)
im careful how I talk about it though as well aware some of my friends and family would kill to WFH but is not going to happen/feasible

I would find another job if I was asked to go back into a base

I agree OP but I think the WFH is a slight red herring because to me it's the cutting commute that's the advantage and not being at home specifically.

My office is a mile from where I live. I literally wake up and decide whether I fancy home or office each morning and that is the perfect balance for me.

It also made a difference when I was fully office based and went part time to do school pick up. My commute was so short I could still work until 3. Again that's the commute, not being able to WFH. It does irk me a bit that people with school aged children WFH with them after school when they're not at the age to be left independently but that is probably sour grapes as I obviously lose money to be part time!

I work with people who used to do full time in office and now moan about coming in once a week. I can't put my finger on it but if they're that anti it I feel like something's not too healthy about that. I am an introvert but if I didn't have that balance I wouldn't be in a good place mentally. When I first went back into the office after covid my DH said I was like a new person...I hadn't the awareness to realise that myself.

I just think it might be too long into my working life for this particular leopard to change its spots. I was used to working in a certain way for over 20 years and the sudden change in the pandemic and then gradual partial creep back to some weird hybrid scenario just doesn’t work for me and I can’t see the advantages that others are getting. I never had a long commute and would often walk or cycle to work so it was actually a pleasant activity and I no longer have small kids to do school runs for so those aspects aren’t an advantage for me. Honestly I just want it to go back to the way it was and not to have any wfh expectation at all.
I was really just putting my experience as a counter balance to OP and others who are all so positive about it. The disadvantages outweigh any good for me and surely some other people must feel the same way.

Can you all please tell me what work you are doing as id love this!

@Wonderwall23yes I do agree with that. If my workplace was in my town I’d love to go in a little more often to get some of the in office benefits which I do recognise.

But what I love about WFH is that it has opened up a whole new world to me because I can now work In major cities that would not be commutable 5 days a week for me. I’m now based in London which I commute to periodically, I have an excellent nationally renowned employer on my CV, the networking benefits of that, and yet I live in the arse end of nowhere! As someone who has to live where we live for lots of reasons, it’s meant I’ve been able to further my career and not be held back by that.

I agree with most of what you’re saying wholeheartedly. With two young children, I could never do the job I do if I had to go to the office five days a week. That said, I do enjoy hybrid because we all go on the same two days of the week and it’s much easier to get things done in person sometimes. I then use my at home time to do the deep thinking work without distractions.

The downside that I’ve experienced, and is something that I really have to be better at managing, is that I seem to fill the extra free time I have by working longer hours. I often find myself working deep into the evenings which I wouldn’t do in the office because I’d have to leave to get home. I also have to remind myself to take a lunch break. I always do this if I’m at the office - I’ll make a point of going for a wander around the shops. But at home, I just sort of don’t!

It’s certainly something for me to work on in 2026!

100% agree! I currently WFH full time, my contract may end before summer so I'm wondering what mid-level permanent WFH roles are out there for me to start looking at. Tips on where to look (sectors, jobs boards) welcome.

@MyQuirkyFinchive tackled this through flexible working, I’ve always worked flexi and been strict on recording my time, but I’ve recently switched to working a compressed fortnight which is working much better. Working slightly longer days, which I was doing anyway (thanks to no commute!) and now I get a day off every fortnight which my colleagues respect and understand. It’s been a game changer this year.

Every time I go into the office, which thankfully is now only rarely, I wonder why anyone could be expected to work competently there.

It’s a really large office floor and everyone is sitting at rows of desks. You have someone sitting on either side of you within about 3 feet of you tapping away on the fricking keyboard and making calls. You have to remember to lock your keyboard every time you just get up to go to the loo, because this is a company rule and the work is so confidential. You can hear people talking the other end of the room and it sends me into meltdown. Then people come and stand behind you when they want to talk to you so you don’t even realise that they’re there until they start talking and then you jump out of your skin.

At home it’s quiet and I can just crack on with what I need to do. If I need to speak to someone, I can message them and ask them when they’re free: whilst this could be done at work, it actually doesn’t happen in practice. I can have confidential conversations and I can work exactly as I want, in peace and quiet. I don’t need to book a room for a quiet talk with someone or for an online meeting.

My job has deadlines both internally and externally and I’m accountable. There is no way that I can take the piss and idle the time away, but at least this way I have a life.

When I need to meet clients or go out for a meeting, that’s what I do. The office is irrelevant. There was a drive to start to get people in but there was no coherent reasoning for this and a new manager who was so terribly keen on it has gradually found that it was much more convenient to stay at home when her child was ill, to save time travelling or to come in for just a few days and the push has quietly subsided. Remote working means that people can be recruited from all around the country to do the work.

I worked in a public service for many years including two late evenings and alternate saturdays. Everything had to be fitted around that and the shifts dominated my life. Later I became an academic when it was usual to work hybrid with 2/3 days at home. That was back in the 90s and long before the current trend to WAH. I cannot say how much difference it made to my life. There was no requirement to sit in front of a computer on my WAH days. I had a series of tasks to accomplish and a deadline to meet with my boss for presentation or progress report. How I organized the work was entirely up to me. I had never known such autonomy. So if I decided to go out shopping or sleep in later on a WAH day and do the work that evening or at the weekend that was no problem. It also meant I could schedule my shopping to be delivered at home and no more trolling around with heavy bags. It was then I realised how wasteful of time, money and effort commuting was. When I retired from employed work and set up in consultancy I already had an established routine.

The negative of WAH is that there is no effective barrier between working and non working time. Emails and texts can arrive at any hour. However I have always set boundaries in dealing with out of hours requests or those which arrive when I am on vacation. For example over the holiday my customers got a bounce back message saying that I was unavailable until XXX. I may have read the messages but I will not begin dealing with them until Monday next.

My work is about writing, so it's well suited to home and having less noise and fewer distraction.

I run several online shops selling vintage. I also do private tutoring at postgrad level.

Completely agree.

i will never work in an office again.

I worked from home for a call centre originally; i wouldn't recommend this, it was not a good environment compared to when I'd done the job on site.

Now I have a hybrid working arrangement and I am a Trainee Welfare Rights Adviser. The job itself doesn't guarantee home or hybrid working, but the particular office I work in gives us the option. I still have face to face appointments with clients so I need to be in the office for those, other people do home visits or visits in other locations, but appointments over the phone can be done at home or in office.

My company is completely cloud based so there is no office to go to, so everyone is home based. I would never work in an office again. I am autistic (diagnosed as an adult) and now so many difficulties I've experienced over the years make sense and explain why working in an office doesn't suit me: noise, smells, people, lack of autonomy etc. From home I have more autonomy, it feels more relaxed (I love my home!), work life balance is great, I go to the gym early every morning - I started doing this as I was finding I was hardly leaving the house at all which was also unsettling for me, I can go for a walk at lunch, when the kids were at school I could take them, pick them up, they could have sick days which weren't disruptive to my daily work schedule. It's the best way of working for me and I'm a productive, flexible employee as a result. My husband, however, hates working from home and loves being in the office.

I changed job in 2025, to a completely new role in a new organisation. The induction period is very thorough, however it is the first time I've done this as a new starter.
I've had weekly (or more) office days but I do feel WFH has huge challenges for new staff but I suppose it is dependent on the type of job you have. Mine is broadly within social care and a lot of learning comes from observation of colleagues, how they handle problems, listening to them discussing cases/situations with others or the manager. All those informal things that happen outside of formal meetings. We've managed it though and I have found what is good for me is learning to hold things and bring up during my 1:1s and feel ok not getting the answer straightaway...usually I'd be asking 'why' in the moment to a colleague.
My job has time in the field which would be the case if I were office based anyway so there's a good mix for me, which I enjoy.

I feel the opposite. I hate wfh & only do it when absolutely necessary, which can of course be useful. I like delineation between my home and office life but I no longer have school age children.

Yes.
I changed jobs just over a year ago.
I went from no wfh and shifts to a very flexible work from home job. In a related sector.

It’s the first time I have worked full time and not been on the edge of a breakdown. I have a lot of demands on my time outside work, and I don’t cope well with being too busy. I have ADHD and am pretty introverted so found being around colleagues all day absolutely exhausting. I used to get very burnt out and have had a couple of incidents of long term sick when something has tipped me over the edge. Now I have the extra resilience available to cope, and the flexibility means I can fit my other commitments into my day. (I do work my full work hours, I don’t mean I’m swanning off to do other things whilst getting paid, but it’s no problem for me to go off in the day for a few hours if need be, I just start earlier/work later)