Are You in the Zone when Working from Home? How Remote Workers' Daily Flow Experiences Promote Daily Functioning and Well-Being Through Reduced Work-Home Interruption Behaviors

The surge in telework after the COVID-19 pandemic has raised debates between employers and employees about how teleworkers can balance flexibility and productivity while working remotely. Our study examines how flow experiences as a volatile personal resource can facilitate teleworkers' functioning and well-being at work and at home through effortless self-regulation. Drawing on the work-home resources model, we argue that daily flow experiences promote teleworkers’ work-domain functioning (e.g., work engagement and need for recovery) and home domain well-being (e.g., subjective vitality and regulatory resource depletion) through reducing work-home interruption behaviors. Furthermore, we propose that states of high daily morning mindfulness act as another volatile personal resource that can support teleworkers' functioning and well-being on days with lower levels of flow experiences by attenuating the daily relationship between flow experiences and work-home interruption behaviors. Results from an experience sampling study with teleworkers during the COVID-19 pandemic (N=87 individuals across N=607 days) support our hypotheses that reduced work-home interruption behaviors mediate the daily relationships between daily flow experiences and work engagement, need for recovery, subjective vitality, and regulatory resource depletion. Our results further highlight that these indirect relationships became weaker on days when teleworkers experience higher, as compared to lower, mindfulness in the morning. Thus, on days with lower levels of flow experiences, mindfulness can be an effective way to facilitate functioning and well-being across domains. Our findings offer theoretical insights and practical implications by revealing how teleworkers can remain both productive and healthy