Working from home can be a massive blessing, and a huge pain. On the one hand, fitting work, exercise, laundry, cooking and enough coffee to function all into one day (whilst in budget) is suddenly much easier. On the other hand, it becomes more difficult to stop work from creeping into your home life, and vice versa.
Stop Working Overtime!
Time saved by not commuting isn’t exactly “spare time” if you can’t quite leave work alone. It is genuinely important to be able to relax in your home once it becomes your work space. If you cannot, you risk working all the time or feeling unable to focus. Some people may find themselves working around the clock, which leads to burnout. Some may find the lack of information from coworkers, or the distractions around the house, will affect their ability to perform.
What’s worse, if you begin to mentally connect multiple areas of your home with work stresses, your brain will automatically stop associating the home with relaxation. We humans are very in tune with our environments — so if our home doesn’t feel like a sanctuary, we will feel it. And, if we happen to share our home with others, as so many of us do, they will pick up on your stress levels too.
Being able to keep the rest of the home comfortable and calm whilst maintaining an efficient, separate work space is a useful skill. The most important thing to remember is that working — no matter where — should only take up a small portion of your life; and you should be able to relax and think about other things outside of working hours.
Hopefully, these tips I’m about to share will help you keep a healthy work-life balance all under one roof.
How to make your working hours & space relaxing
- Create a relaxing working environment
This should be an area which you only use for work — which is why over lockdown, so many people ended up working from their closets and spare bedrooms. Preferably, find somewhere with good lighting and air flow, where you can sit and work comfortably.
You could make it a little nicer with aromatherapy oils (such as lavender for relaxation). Lamps may help, especially if the natural lighting is poor (consider buying an SAD lightbox); or even invest in a potted plant or two (succulents are an excellent, low-maintenance office decoration).
Keep this room like an office, with coffee, phone charger and snacks, but no social media or television. This will help your brain associate your working space with work — and nowhere else in the house.
2. Create a routine — and stick to it.
Your working hours should be the same every day. Humans generally like routine; our brains automatically look for and create them, because routines keep things consistent. Whether it’s when you wake up, when you eat, or when you stop working, it becomes much easier to do anything regularly if you do it at the same time every day.
Try creating “triggers” for beginning and ending the day — such as activities you can do which will symbolise a commute. Whether this is simply taking a short walk, doing a quick meditation exercise, or something else, the important thing is that you take a period of time to prepare yourself for entering and leaving “work mode”.
3. Keep the same schedule as everyone else in your home
Although the temptation will be to sleep until long past when everyone else has left for school and work, this will only end up complicating matters. If your working hours align with your family’s and friends’ schedules, you will also keep the same leisure hours. By prioritising your time, you can spend some quality hours with those you love. In turn, you will feel much more content and comfortable than you would after a lie in…
4. Take breaks
It sounds like a fairly obvious tip, but taking proper breaks (like you would in an office) will boost productivity levels, as well as helping to make working from home feel “normal”. Switching from a spreadsheet to Twitter’s webpage without looking away from the screen does not count. Make sure you move away from your workspace for a bit — you could try a short phone call with a friend, or just a snack and a cup of coffee.
The important thing is to give your brain a little time to rest before you begin using it again. If you have trouble tearing yourself away during the day, you can download break timers for your web browser or mobile phone. Plus, you can use these to stop working at the end of the day!
5. Keep in touch
Just because you’re working from home, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t reach out to your co-workers, or take a break to chat to a friend or family member. Many people find working from home quite isolating, and have issues with communicating exactly what is going on within their workplace.
Ensure that alongside your meetings, you keep in contact with your colleagues, even if you just email to double-check something, or congratulate them for a job well done. Working from home doesn’t mean you should be working in solitude.
6. Move about!
Ensure that you’re stretching your neck, wrists and legs every hour or so. Also, try to go somewhere on your breaks, even if it’s just to stand by the window in another room. We have been hearing for decades about the effect desk-work has on our bodies and posture, so now is the time to undo some of it! Doing deep stretches for up to a minute will make you feel more comfortable, which will boost your energy and concentration levels.
To take away…
Many people view working from home, at least part time, as an ideal situation. Yet, when it comes down to it, finding the right balance can be incredibly tricky. What’s more, if it goes wrong, you could end up not being able to work or relax efficiently. It could affect your physical, mental and emotional health, leading to exhaustion.
Readjusting to working from home can be difficult, and you may find you have to totally reshuffle your living space; but it’s better than ending up feeling stressed in your own home. Remote working should not under any circumstances mean working all the time.
People cannot work all the time, it is unnatural. Moreover, if you find yourself unable to stop working around the clock, your quality of work will suffer. The brain needs time to rest and recuperate, and to process the information it has received during the day — this is why it’s so crucial that you stop working when it’s time to “clock out”, as it were.
Written by Lucia Victor
WellBe is spearheading the way to a brighter future for corporate wellness. Our innovative portal is scientifically designed and tailored to each individual employee to improve their wellbeing. We specialise in a range of services from coaching and therapists, to meditation and reading materials. Our aim is to reduce workplace stress that costs UK businesses £42 billion per year. Get in touch with us by visiting our site wellbe.global for more information.
