I’m not going to lie, when I accepted my new role, I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about working from home.
Hybrid working was completely new to me and, after spending more than twenty years in schools, I didn’t really know what to expect.
I’d heard people talk about how isolating it could be and I had questions.
Would I miss seeing people every day?
Would I struggle without the structure of being in an office?
Part of me genuinely wondered whether I’d enjoy it at all.
I think some of that uncertainty came from the last time I worked from home.
Like lots of people, the only time I’d ever worked from home was during the Covid-19 lockdowns, and that wasn’t the kind of work-life balance I wanted to replicate. In 2020, I was getting up at 3.30am to prepare and record lessons before my own children woke up, then spending the day teaching my elder two, while also caring for my baby son.
To be completely honest, that period was traumatic.
I think I’d quietly convinced myself that working from home would somehow feel like that again.
It doesn’t.
Not even slightly.
The first thing that surprised me was how connected I still feel to the rest of the team. We message throughout the day, jump on Teams whenever we need to and there’s always someone available for a chat. It never feels isolating because we’re still working together, just in a different way.
The second surprise was how much easier it is to focus.
Without the usual distractions of a busy office, I can properly concentrate on what I’m doing. I hadn’t realised how much I enjoy uninterrupted thinking until I had the chance to do it.
Then there are the mornings.
On office days, it’s the usual rush to get everybody ready, battle the traffic and make it into work on time.
On home-working days, I still do the school run. But afterwards I walk back into my own house, fill up my water bottle and start work from a space that feels calm and familiar.
I’ve created a workspace that I genuinely enjoy sitting in.
That was unexpected too.
Perhaps the biggest surprise, though, has been what happens after work.
For years, teaching took almost everything I had. By the time I’d finished the school day, dealt with meetings, planning and everything else that came with the job, my social battery was completely empty.
I thought that was normal.
Now, I finish work and I still feel like I have something left.
When I accepted this job, I thought working from home would be the part I’d struggle with most.
Two months later, I honestly wouldn’t go back.
