“Vacant Job Position: with flexibility to work from home once or twice a week”. We all know (or may have forgotten) job roles which advertise this type of work flexibility are seen as more attractive and stand out amongst other positions. This is an employee benefit, which is just as attractive as ‘Private Healthcare’, ‘25+ days holiday’ and a good ‘company pension scheme’. So, why is it now that we are faced with several weeks of continuous ‘working from home’, does it feel like something which once felt like a luxury, now feels more like a burden or a mental marathon?
The answer for this is hidden amongst a number of reasons. ‘Working from home’ is: no longer a ‘flexible option’ as it has been mandated – making us feel less free; we are no longer free to socialise with other people of our choosing outside of our working hours; and for many of us, working from home, non-stop, is an alienating new experience for us, that we may not be both physically or mentally set up yet, to work in this way.
What can you incorporate into your ‘working from home set up’ to make it a better overall experience?
Routine
Whether you are currently working or not working, keeping a ’Routine’ within your day is more important than ever. We are creatures of habit and ever since a young age, we are used to having structure week – 5 days a week, whether that would be, going to school, university or work. Therefore, rather than waking up 10 minutes before your working day starts, why not continue your usual morning routine (albeit with a later start time, now that you don’t have to commute), whatever, that may be – enjoying a coffee whilst reading a book/magazine or even adding a quick 20 min workout/walk/mediation session before you start your day, to put yourself in the best mindset.
Further, its important to try and emulate your working day at home as you would in the office, incorporating your usual breaks in your working day. In addition to ensuring that you stop working at your usual finish time and making the effort to continue your evenings as you normally would had you been working in the office.
Dressing for the day
Whilst we are in isolation, I know it can be tempting to wake up and remain in our pyjamas, bath robe, lounge clothes, whatever your choice maybe – but truthfully, we have our weekends and evenings, to dress in this way. There is power in the way we dress, the clothes we wear are not only an expression of our identity but it also allows us to play a role.
Getting dressed for the day and wearing our work clothes, gives us a sense of familiarity and purpose, allowing us to pop on our ‘business hat’ and get into the mindset for our working day… Now, I’m not saying, we should wake up and put on our finest work attire, but merely, slide our ‘lounge clothes’ to the side, and pop on our day clothes, some perfume or a little make up and begin our working day – trust me you will feel better for it.
Breaks
When working from home, it is very easy to get into the habit of sitting in front of your computer for hours on end and only getting up, quickly to go the toilet or get a drink – especially when you are busy. We are all guilty of it. However, when working from home, its important to compartmentalise your day, creating a structure that emulates a working day at the office, ensuring that we take the breaks that we set for ourselves. For example, if you work a 9-6pm day, you could set ‘hard’ breaks (non-negotiable and scheduled in the work calendar): 11am (15 min Tea and Biscuit break – also known as ‘Elevenses’ 😉); 1pm (30 min lunch break); 3.30pm (Tea and Cake – also known as ‘Afternoon Tea’ 😉).
Once set, make sure you take these breaks away from your desk/work phone, allowing you to both physically and mentally disconnect. Whilst working from home these breaks are even more important in your day, as they allow you to maintain your mental sanity and productivity potency.
Scheduling your Breaks with family and friends
To try and help you stick to the breaks that you set for yourself – if you live with someone, you could agree to take your mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks, together, so that it is something that you both look forward to in your day. Alternatively, you could pre-arrange your breaks to speak with friends and family – by ‘pre-arranging’ a time, this will help you try and maintain the breaks you have set for yourself, as you have someone else to hold you accountable for missing them and make you less tempted to skip them.
Your Work Space
Creating the perfect working space. It is important to set up space in a place and way that functions for you.
Location
Ideally, where you choose to work should be in a place where there is lots of natural light (providing you positive vibes for those sunny days) and not in a place where you would normally sit to relax and enjoy your evenings. However, tempting it may be, to remain in bed or sit on your sofa and work from there, these are both places where you often spend your evenings relaxing – therefore it is important mentally not to combine these places with both relaxation and work – as soon, over time, your association with your bed and sofa, will not just be a place of relaxation, but one of work too. Plus your back won’t thank you! Popular spaces to work are your dining table or spare room (if you are lucky to have one of these!)
Equipment
Power: Make sure you set yourself up near whatever you need for a full working day. If you need more than one plug, invest in a power adapter which allows you to have all your essentials in one place. For example, power for a laptop, light, phone charger and any other equipment you require.
Desk: If you have space for a desk or are thinking of purchasing a new desk, think about the height and depth of the desk for what you need – seems like a silly thing to suggest, but this is often overlooked when setting up your workspace.
Chair: A comfortable chair should never be overlooked – as we are likely to be working from home for the next 4 weeks if not more, choosing a desk which supports you back is important. You could use your dining room chair, however, it may be worth investing in a proper ‘desk chair’ as it is likely that you will use this in the future as I suspect when we come out of this isolation period that many companies will be more flexible to their employees working from home.
Computer Screen: Does working from one screen work for you? If not, do you have a spare screen you could hook your laptop up to? (You could purchase an additional screen from Amazon or Facebook Marketplace or if you usually work with 2 screens your company could arrange for you to be provided with one)
Lighting: As a lot of our time is spent staring at screens and concentrating on information, it is important that you have the correct amount of light for you to work in – as it stops us from staring our eyes, but also helps us feel less tired at the end of the working day and stops us from getting headaches. If you are fortunate, to be working in a space with lots of natural light, then lighting is likely to be less of a factor for you unless you are working in the evenings.
Comforts
As you are working from home and have the freedom to incorporate whatever you like into your work set up. Why not think about things you can add to your set up that will bring you joy throughout your day, for example, a favourite calming candle/diffuser or fresh flowers/plant (adding extra oxygen to your room).
TV or not to TV? Does having the TV on provide you with the optimum working atmosphere? How about opting for music instead and popping a Spotify playlist on – since isolation, Spotify have categorised lots of different Mood playlists, for example ‘Serotonin’, ‘Happy’, ‘Chilled Classical’, ‘Stress Buster’ playlist and many more, all perfect for creating the right soundtrack to your working day and a great way to listen to new music too.
Video Calls with Team Members
Even if you can be the most introverted of people, when faced with working from home continuously for a long period of time, you are likely to miss interacting with your colleagues, which in turn may leave you feeling isolated from our work life. A great way to overcome this feeling, is by setting up regular conference calls with your closest colleagues or fellow team members – where you don’t necessarily have to talk about work, but partake in the usual office chat/banter, that you would in the office.
Lack of exercise working from home
Now, one of the great things about working from home is – no commute. However, one of the worst things about working from home is – no commute! I know, I know, that doesn’t make sense – but what I mean is – working from the space of your home all day, means that you will often finish your work day with only having racked up a few thousand steps. It is only when you have worked from home for a number of days that you begin to realise how much exercise you get from working at the office – the trips to the office toilet on the other side of the work floor; your walk to and from the train station/car park; going to your favourite coffee/lunch place; walking to the office meeting rooms – all in turn providing you with a healthy amount of exercise.
Ways you can overcome a lack of exercise from working at home are:
- Exercising before you start work or during your lunch break.
- Every time you take a client call, opt to take the call standing up or walking around your house to keep your daily step count up.
- For your mid-morning or afternoon break, you could choose to take go for a walk with your coffee or as you catch up on a call with a friend.
- If you have a home work setup which allows you to, you could add a desk adapter which allows you to transform your desk into a standing desk, so that you can work some of your day standing rather than sitting, which will also work wonders for your posture.
Looking after children and Working from Home (during isolation)
This is undoubtedly one of the hardest parts to juggle whilst in isolation. Most parents would have never have thought that they would have to simultaneously look after their children/home school them, whilst working a full day from home. The solutions to make this as easy as possible for you are going to be very much down to individuals circumstances and the age of your children. However, some of the options which could potentially work are listed below:
Shifts with your Partner
For those who are living with a partner who are too working from home, you could create shifts with your partner, so that there are times where one person is responsible for setting out/overseeing the kids activities, whilst the other works. Then swapping responsibilities after a designated period of time, to allow the other to ‘bury’ their head in work.
Flexible working hours
Another alternative, is negotiating with your workplace ‘flexible hours of working’ allowing you to work when your children are normally best behaved/occupied in their day or asleep. This may seem like a foreign concept, but as the period of isolation continues, I am seeing many of my clients who are working in this way. There is definitely a sense of “we are all in this together” and from a Human Resources standpoint, Companies will hopefully be more flexible and accommodating during this period of self-isolation, from both a morale standpoint and ‘need/want’ to maintain the mental health of their workforce.
End of Day
Although this is often the part of your day that you are looking forward to the most, when working from home it is often hard to create a separation between work and your home. To help facilitate the separation it is helpful to decide within yourself, what your hard ‘stop time’ is, whether this be your contractual finish time or another time that you wish to always be ‘out of the office’ by.
To assist with the above, you can choose ways that help you to punctuate the end of your working day. For example, closing your laptop and going for a sunset walk, spending time with your children before/after dinner, a long bath, make dinner, pouring yourself a glass of wine – whatever that may be. It is helpful to choose what your ‘punctuating action’ will be, and visualise yourself doing it before you actually start your work day, as then it will feel that you are working towards this goal and will help you to actually put it into motion when the time comes.
Out of Hours – Work Expectations
If you are used to/expected to work/check emails throughout your evening – what I find to be helpful is to set yourself some hard rules to stick by, so that you don’t end up glued to your laptop or work phone. For example, a rule could be to check your emails every hour or a maximum number of times you will check your emails, before you get ready for bed. Choosing to action only urgent items and replying with placeholders for any work that can be completed the following day.
Lastly, for maximum life/work balance it is suggested that we put our work devices down at least an hour before your go to bed, to allow yourself to truly disconnect and relax before going to sleep. An hour before bed, to help to get into the right mindset before bed, I place my work phone in a separate room to where I sleep, so that I am not ‘tempted’ to check my email before bed or when I wake.
What changes have you incorporated into your ‘working from home day’? Have any of these tips helped you? Please share in the comments, as I would love this to be a space where we can all learn from each other.