The pandemic has thrown us all into a messy schedule and working from home has become the norm. However, the different environments can cause a shift in the body and even our psychological state. Overworking and even self-care can become lost in the passing hours. Here are a few tips on how to manage to stay well and maintain a balance as you work from home.
Schedule breaks
You might be working from home and it is all you dreamed of, so you put in all the effort you can. It seems like just an hour until you notice that it is almost sundown. Having kids around, depending on their age, can make it easy to send out someone for anything you need, reducing your movement. This is not healthy in any way for your body. You need to avoid work burnout. Have some breaks to stretch out, go for a walk, or make something delicious using Monin Flavours with those around you. Your family will enjoy your breaks too.
Maintain your office hours
This might be a cruel way of saying it, but you will still be paid the same as though you were in the office. Maintaining office hours makes it easy to have a schedule of workload to continue without overworking. Maintaining your regular working hours will also leave you time to do other personal and social things that are required of you.
Have a fun activity with the family members
Working from home can become a cause of friction because family members have some expectations that you might not be able to fulfill. Setting aside time to do something fun, like making dinner with the kids, can be something that they all look forward to and it can bring a lot of joy to everyone. Watermelon lemonades are a fun recipe that includes carving up a watermelon. It is goofy and kids will love it.
Dress up
It seems fun to attend those online meetings with pajama bottoms and official tops, but it only takes a short period before you throw caution out the window and work in pajamas. It feels casual and chill but it elicits a feeling of unseriousness that can cause slacking in your productivity. Dress up fully at least twice a week to elicit the feeling of the office and seriousness in the process. It is also one sure way to beat the procrastination bug.
Have an office space
There is nothing more embarrassing than your flash disk going missing when you need to make a presentation or milk spilling all over your desk because you carry your laptop to all places in the house. Become orderly by having a designated office space where anything related to your work is located. It does not have to be an entire room, which is okay if you have, but for those without, it could be something as simple as one corner of your dining table.
Set ground rules
The quarantine period has brought forth many hilarious videos, like children and spouses walking into online meetings and classes. Before you start working from home, sit with everyone in the household. Set some ground rules that will help keep some order. This will ensure that your kids can continue studying, you and your spouse can work without clashing, and the interference will be minimal.
Upgrade your security
If you do not have two-step verification for your devices, you need to put it up as soon as possible. Using a VPN is one of the most important steps you could put up. If you use shared Wi-Fi in your buildings or you need to go over to a cafe who’s Wi-Fi you connect to, it might be a bad idea to connect a laptop that has company content. Taking these steps and an antivirus will help you maintain online professionalism as you keep your company’s data safe from hackers.
Working from home has become the new normal and it will continue into the unforeseeable future, so it is better to have a guideline that will help you get through as we wait for the curve to flatten and life to go back to normal. Staying safe and following the guidelines even indoors is highly recommended to maintain safety.