James' World 2

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Recently, I had a reunion with some old university friends. After dinner and a bottle (or two) of wine, we slumped down together in front of the television. A few minutes later our host slid open his laptop and started moving parts around on a PowerPoint presentation. “Just getting ahead of something for Monday,” he shrugged.

The next morning we went for a walk. In the middle of taking in the fresh air and catching up about work and kids and life in general, a friend who runs a small business dropped behind a little to look at his phone. “Emails,” he sighed. He was on holiday, but not really. “It’s not like I’m abroad,” he reasoned.

It used to be that work was an ironed shirt and a train journey away. But during the pandemic, WFH changed all that for many people, and it seems to have stuck. Back in 2020, my partner and I would convene from different ends of our flat at the end of the workday with a slightly crazed look in our eyes and compare notes on how we’d barely eaten or taken a break. No one was demanding or expecting this behavior, – on the contrary, our bosses would have been appalled – but the boundaries between work and life had suddenly become porous, and we didn’t know how to deal with it. Three years later, it’s not clear anyone has really figured it out.

The idea of setting boundaries has been fodder for self-help books since around the mid-80s, but in 2022 the idea is making a roaring comeback. And it’s no surprise. After a period in which our digital lives expanded at the same time as our physical freedoms shrank, knowing where to draw the line has never felt more difficult – and it’s not just a work thing. Technology means that as parents, partners, and friends we are available to anyone who might want our attention at any time. If we’re single and trying to find love we have to accept we can be tracked, studied, and judged by people we haven’t even met yet, assuming we’re active on social media (and if we’re not, it’s hard to even play the dating game in the first place).

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The idea of setting boundaries has been fodder for selfhelp books since around the mid-80s, but in 2022 the idea is making a roaring comeback.’ Photograph: Rudzhan Nagiev/Getty Images

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