How Civil Servants Manage Their Time to Prevent Burnout on Fridays When Working From Home

Working from home is often seen as offering more comfort than working from the office because you don’t have to endure the commute. But for Wiwid (38), a document controller specialist at one of Jakarta’s regional-owned enterprises (BUMD), working from home presents its own challenges that require a specific strategy to avoid mental fatigue or burnout. As a mother and an employee, a day working from home for Wiwid isn’t simply about completing documents or attending virtual meetings. At the same time, she must also respond to her children’s needs and manage a work rhythm that often stretches into the night. One of the biggest challenges when working from home is dividing focus between work and the needs of her children, which often come unpredictably. For the mother of two, this situation often arises when she is wrestling with documents or attending online meetings, while her children require more attention. ‘Sometimes when I’m working and a child is around, they become more clingy, wanting to be fed, but I’m still handling work. The child wants to be close to their mother all the time,’ Wiwid said in an interview with Kompas.com. Rather than forcing herself to juggle two roles at once, Wiwid chose a compromise approach which, she says, is more realistic. That simple boundary became her way of ensuring she could keep up with her work without neglecting her children. ‘Sometimes I also tell my child not to take too long to eat. After that, I return to handling documents, Zoom, or other tasks,’ she said. This approach keeps her work rhythm intact even when it is occasionally interrupted by domestic matters. The time flexibility of WFH is often seen as an advantage. But for Wiwid, this condition presents a challenge that must be faced.