30 Mar Best tips for working from home to keep your sanity
It can be hard to concentrate when working from home as you can be surrounded by distractions such as kids, the dog, the news or that wandering cat who likes to sit near you or worse still on your laptop.
With the COVID pandemic, more of us are having to adjust to working from home, and it isn’t always easy. If you miss the hustle and noise of the office or even those mildly irritating colleagues, then read on. This blog is going to help by giving tips on the things that you can do to cope with working from home and on your own, so you can sit comfortably and remain sane within the confines of your home office.
The Risks and Pitfalls from when working from home?
Working from home can initially seem like a wonderful idea, you can get up later in the morning or have your favourite TV show on while working, but with yang comes a ying and there are things that can get in the way of your enjoyment and impact wellbeing when you work from home.
The Isolation
If you are used and enjoy the hustle and bustle of a busy work environment, working alone can get you down. you may feel stuck in your own space with no-one to talk to or be in contact with. The isolation can sometimes feel oppressive and overwhelming and you may feel lonely and isolated from everyone. This could have a very negative effect on you especially if you are isolated for a long period of time and can sometimes then impact your loved ones, freinds and family.
Over Working
Working from home often sees people become very conscious about ensuring the trust placed in them is delivered back or developing a slight paranoia about ensuring they are there working, not slacking. This can lead to overworking.
This makes it easy to over work yourself or feel Burnt out from working remotely from home. You may feel like you need to put in more hours than is what is required in order to keep up with your colleges which can obviously lead to huge amounts of stress as well as feeling tired and worn out.
You can also start to feel that you need to do things at home, after all that pile of dishes needs cleaning, but you might have to work. These situations can cause stress and blurring the lines between work life and home life can be exhausting so it’s important to keep this in mind.
Tips to help your working life at Home
The Home Office built for you
The first step is to set up a designated work zone- Setting up a place in your home that you are comfortable working in is crucial. Maybe have it set up so that you have access to plenty of sunlight to keep you healthy both physically and mentally. As Roy Ayers would say everybody loves the sunshine.
In addition, having a comfortable and organised workspace, will help you concentrate more allowing you to separate your work life and home life better. Make no bones about it, this first step is crucial to adding happiness your home working life.
It’s important to make and take time for you
There are lots of ways to take a little time for yourself and you can look at things like meditation and mindfulness. We aren’t suggesting becoming a monk to gain holy wisdom, but spending time thinking on yourself and reflecting can be very useful and take you out of the stress of work at home.
Take a few minutes to relax your mind and muscles if you are feeling overwhelmed or stressed out as it can help you cope with it. Even taking a moment to have a few deep breathes can help improve your working life a huge amount.
There are many apps and companies offering free support at this time such as at this time including companies headspace and calm
Frequently contact your colleges
Sitting in silence can be overwhelming and the lack of conversation can be a challenge for some. To avoid isolating yourself technologies such as Microsoft teams (which is free of charge at the moment), Slack or Skype can be useful to keep up both your morale and that of your workmates.
Technology can allow us to work virtually and collaboratively with colleagues. Even if it’s just occasionally checking in on them for a video chat or call, can help you feel less isolated. Feeling like you are connected to other humans will help you work more effectively and maintain your sanity.
Create a routine
Get yourself into a daily routine at home like you would at work so that you can get used to work life again.
Set yourself time for breaks so that you don’t have to overwhelm yourself with work. Even schedule what work you do on specific days in order to give yourself time to complete it all and not burn yourself out.
Having a routine to both how and when you will work will help greatly, remember to take you breaks and don’t feel guilty after all at work you may wander to a colleagues desk for a minute or two which you cant do at home. Be kind to yourself and ensure you include downtime for yourself to avoid stress.
In Summary
There is no doubt that so far 2020 has been a stressful year for everyone. We are in a pandemic the likes of which we have not seen and more of us are working from home or self-isolating.
We need to take a moment to recognise these changes and be kind to ourselves if we struggle and hit a few blips on the way. We need to take time to adjust and accept the changes and we all need to ensure we focus on keeping ourselves in the right place when it comes to our health and wellbeing.
We hope these tips can help improve your work life at home and make it go as smooth and comfortable as possible so that you can avoid stress and maybe feel a bit less isolated in your own space.
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