New Ways of Life: Cultivating Balance at a Tech Start‐Up During Lockdown

ABSTRACT This article draws on digital ethnographic fieldwork to examine how the pandemic‐induced shift to remote work prompted workers at a London tech start‐up to engage in ethical reflections on their new work–life arrangements. Workers imagined becoming a more “balanced” worker—autonomous but connected, productive but not burnt out, balanced but still committed—capable of investing their time and energy into both their professional and personal lives. Yet as time passed, aspirations to cultivate a balanced self clashed with emerging ambiguities about what counts as “real work” and “procrastination” when working from home. As everyday rhythms were reconfigured, the absence of office‐based social cues revealed the collective, relational maintenance work that underpins temporal order, workplace presence, and a sense of balance for workers. By tracing workers' struggles and efforts to cultivate balance, this article contributes to debates on the social dynamics and moral contradictions of remote work in a post‐pandemic context.