Over the past year, many people have switched to working from home because of Covid. Getting into a good routine for working from home can be tricky. Below are my tips for working from home.
It has been nearly a year since I’ve been working from home. I never once thought when my company made the announcement that we’d still be working from home now.
After around 6 months of us working from home, my company announced that it would be shutting down and selling the location that my office was in. Now, I am permanently working from home.
In light of this, I have slowly been working towards optimizing my desk area at home. It is still far very far away from what I’d like it to be. In the meantime, I’ve been working on getting into a good routine to keep motivated at work.
Set a Schedule
Working from home can be tricky. It can quickly cause work time to overlap with what used to be free time.
This is why it is important to set a schedule and stick to that schedule. Pick a time to start in the morning and sign off at night like you typically would.
All too often it can be easy to just work through dinner or log on extra early in the morning.
However, doing this kind of additional work is not necessarily good for your health.
There is actually a point when you work too many hours where those extra hours are not beneficial anymore. Plus, your brain needs some downtime to rest so it can be at its best.
Keeping a set schedule for working, even while working from home is good for your mental health.
For me, I typically sign on sometime between 7:30-8:00 AM and then sign off between 4:00-4:30 each day. These hours are not that different from what I had been working while I was in the office.
Set Boundaries with Others at Home
Many people have others at home with them while they are working. It could be spouses, roommates, or children of various ages.
This means that you can have many interruptions in your day. Make sure you have set some boundaries with everyone to let them know when you can be interrupted.
It may be helpful to have a sign to let them know you are in a meeting so they do not walk in partway through a meeting.
If your kids are older, you can talk to them about what would warrant an interruption to your workday so they don’t constantly stop in for every single small thing that comes up.
Have a Dedicated Workspace
If you can, have a dedicated office for your workspace. Obviously, this is not possible for everyone, so do what you can with your space.
You may just have your own desk set up in the corner of your living room. Where ever your workspace is, try to keep it slightly separate from your living space.
The physical separation of the workspace from your living space will help to keep your mind off of your work while you are relaxing. Again, the key here is to make sure that your brain takes that mental break it needs from the workplace to refresh itself.
I have my desk set up in our extra bedroom right now. I find that helpful because when I leave the room at the end of the night, I can forget about my work for the evening.
For some people, it is especially helpful to have a door to close, to create even more of that mental separation from work for them.
Decorating
One of the benefits of working from home is that you can truly decorate your office space to your liking.
While I did have decorations in my cubicle when I had a physical workspace to go to, they weren’t necessarily my full style.
Make sure you put something in your office that brings your joy or even relaxation. It can be something small, like a desktop picture or a fully decorated office area.
Just make sure it is something to bring you an extra smile while you are working.
If you are looking for additional benefits on working from home as a way to raise your gratitude towards it, check out this article from The Muse.
Get Ready for the Work Day
Similar to when you were going into the office, do something to get ready for your day.
I personally keep pretty much the same routine as I had while I went into the workplace.
Not everyone wants to keep the same full routine, which makes sense. Simplify your routine down to something smaller than it used to be.
At least do something simple like change out of your pajamas into clothes.
I find that getting dressed in at least jeans and a t-shirt helps me switch into the work mindset for the day.
Take Breaks
Take breaks throughout the day. Similar to how you would have walked around in the office, take short breaks to stretch your legs.
It also helps to not stare at your screens non-stop, so make sure you are moving around a little bit for your eyes to get some relief as well.
Get outside for a short break if you can. I like to take a short 15-minute walk around lunchtime if I can. I found that doing this helped me refresh my mind for the second half of the day.
If you have a lot of conference calls that you need to only listen to, you could even walk during those if you have the right equipment. This again will help to stretch your legs, give your eyes a break, and make you feel refreshed.
When the weather is nice, I like to sit outside on my deck for those conference calls I only need to listen to. Being out in the sunshine brings me extra happiness during the day.
Another way to get a good break and time away from your screen is to each your lunch in a different room. It can also help give your mind a little break if you eat with slightly different scenery than at your desk.
Ergonomics
If you haven’t set up an ergonomic workspace yet, now is the time to do it. When I first started working from home, I had my laptop on my desk and a second monitor hooked up to it.
I found that I was getting a stiff neck more often when I had this setup. What I realized is that the laptop as one of my main screens was lower than it should have been.
To fix this, I took a few old textbooks and piled them underneath my laptop to raise it up. I then hooked up a USB keyboard and used that so it was at the right height for my wrists to sit comfortably.
That was just a temporary fix until I had both of my full monitors and docking station at home. If you do not have the option to get your full IT equipment at home, there are plenty of other options.
Simply Googling “laptop stand” will bring you back options to get your laptop at the right height for viewing. Some of the options are even sit-to-stand adjustable ones if you prefer to have that option.
The other key part of ergonomics is the chair. You want to make sure your lower back has plenty of support. If you don’t have a ton of support, it is recommended to stick a pillow behind your back as a way to get it.
The training I took through work also notes that when you sit in your chair you should have about an inch of space between the back of your leg and the chair bottom.
If you don’t have a comfortable chair and are working from home for the long haul like me, now is the time to invest in one.
Zoom Fatigue
You may have heard about zoom fatigue. I know I have.
I have personally not experienced it. My company doesn’t use much for video conferencing.
My basic understanding of zoom fatigue is that people experience feeling drained after sitting through endless video meetings throughout the day.
I recently sat through training on remote employee engagement and learned more about it.
The cause of zoom fatigue is the constant back-to-back meetings without having any space in between them.
It is now possible to literally go from one meeting to the next in a matter of seconds. This turnaround leaves no time to process information in between the meetings.
It is the lack of processing time in between meetings for you to digest the information that causes zoom fatigue.
If you do have a lot of meetings like this, try to take a few minutes in between the meeting to think about your previous one before signing on to the next.
Communication
I read somewhere very early on last year that with everyone working from home, your communication needs to be at least twice that of what it was in the office.
Make sure you step up your level of communication to the point where your workgroup is comfortable. As a leader, this means passing along the information to your team as soon as you get it, so they don’t feel out of the loop and learn it from someone else first.
As an employee, this may mean giving your leader more frequent updates on projects you are working on or letting them know if you need more work to do.
Staying Connected with Co-Workers
Staying connected with co-workers while working from home is an area that is super tricky. Not being in the office means you lose the “water cooler” run-ins that you used to have.
Working from home, it can feel awkward to just send a message to your co-worker asking how they are doing. However, as we learned last week in my article on How to be Happy, people are usually happier to hear from us than we expect.
I find this is especially true for those co-workers that may live alone. Loneliness is on the rise as a result of the pandemic and keeping in touch with co-workers is one way to mitigate that.
Use video calls when you can for meetings and allow time in the meeting for that typical chat that would happen before the meeting officially starts
Call more often than you would if you were in the office. I know my generation and younger won’t like to hear this one, but calling can leave you feeling far more connected than the instant message chats via Skype.
Set up special meetings to catch up. A few of my co-workers do this and it is great. They are just short 15-30 minute video calls specifically dedicated to checking in on how each other are doing.
It is so nice to just see faces on the screens and get to catch up a little bit on personal lives.
Other options for things similar to this are having a virtual happy hour after work ends or hosting a virtual game night with co-workers.
Have a Routine to End the Day
Do a little something to switch from the workday into home life. The idea of this is to have something similar to what your commute used to do for you.
A little break in between work and home life to allow your mind to switch gears.
Ideas for this would be to take a short walk outside, sit and listen to your favorite music quietly, do a meditation, or get in a workout.
I know the days I do this; I feel much more rejuvenated to handle all that home life has to offer with a toddler at home after a long workday.
Take Your Vacation/Sick Days
Continue to take your vacation and/or sick days. Sometimes it seems like working from home is a “vacation” because you aren’t in the office.
However, working from home doesn’t actually give you the same mental break that a vacation would. It is important to take your vacation days for your mental health.
Take these days off even if you can’t take the trips you normally would. It can still be refreshing to take a short day trip somewhere or even take a relaxing day at home.
If you have sick days, take them if you are feeling sick. The tendency is to just keep working through it because you are at home.
However, if you are feeling crummy, chances are your body could use the rest day to heal. Besides, working while you are sick is likely a far less productive workday than if you were feeling well.
Resting your body is important for the feeling process when you are sick, so take the time off if you need it. I myself did not do this recently and I completely regretted it.
What probably could have been a few sick days dragged on into a few week-long cold/stomach flu because I just worked through it. For those of your wondering, it was not Covid, I did get tested.
I honestly think that if I had taken just two days off to rest my body and let it get what it needed; the symptoms would have passed more quickly.
Final Notes for Tips on Working from Home
The final thought I’d like to leave you with is this: be kind to yourself on how you work from home.
The switch to fully working from home is a big change and a difficult one to balance. Give yourself grace on those days you find it harder to concentrate.
On the flip side, if you find yourself working endlessly, give yourself the grace and realize that it is okay to fully sign out from work, even if your computer is staring at you from your living room.
Maintaining that work/home life balance was tricky to begin with and has now become even harder. Use these tips for working from home to try and maintain that balance.
Many of these tips can help you increase your focus while you are working. Others will help you thrive in your mental health by setting those boundaries between work and home.
Good luck out there in the new work-from-home lifestyle! Try some of these tips out and let me know how they worked for you. If you have additional tips, leave them in the comments below to let us know what works best for you!
