Six Work From Home Tips To Stay Sane And Maintain Work-Life Balance
Six Work From Home Tips To Stay Sane And Maintain Work-Life Balance.
With Coronavirus keeping most workers at home (as of writing in April 2020), I’ve had interesting discussions on the topic of work-life balance as many workers have shifted from in-office to at-home. This has had a noticeable impact on the future or work(read my thoughts on the future of work here).
While some organizations already had a work-from-home policy, for a number of organizations, this is their first experience dealing with it. If you fall into the second category, I recommend you check out the following post I wrote – How To Build A Remote Work Culture For Your Organization.
I’ve heard from a number of other people that while they have enjoyed working from home, when conditions return to normal, they see themselves only working 1-2 days from home every couple of weeks.
Again, some more thoughts on the rise of remote work with #COVIDー19 . A thread…
— Paul Lopushinsky (@paulplayficient) March 14, 2020
I’ve heard from others the challenges that they’re dealing with personally, along with staff on knowing when to shut off from work while at home.
This has lead to people working longer hours than when they were working in the office. In some cases, it leads to people overworking (you can read my thoughts on overwork here).
It’s a tricky subject, but I’ve come across a number of solutions or tips that people have made use of to help with the work-life balance.
Note: I will not be discussing work-life balance tips from home if you have children.
I am not a parent myself, so I do not have the experience nor the knowledge to cover this.
That said, here are a few articles and guides you can make use of if you’re looking for help on that front:
- The Remote Working Parent’s Survival Guide
- How to Master Working From Home—While Under Quarantine With Kids
- How to Achieve a Healthy Work-Life Balance
Want this post in video form? I got you covered:
Here Are Six Tips To Use To Help With Work-Life Balance While Working From Home:
1. Use A Different Computer For Work.
If your work provides a work laptop for you (which tends to be the norm), then this is a no-brainer.
Using a different computer for work as opposed to one you use for bills or anything personal will help keep the two apart and help with work-life balance while working from home.
What if you don’t have another computer to use?
I talked to someone who had this issue, and had a simple yet great solution to this problem.
During work hours, they would use a different background for their computer.
That was all they needed to do. Seeing that background was enough to keep them focused at work. When they were done? They switched backgrounds to what it was before.
Simple, yet so effective.
What my background looks like while working.
2. Have A Designated Spot For Work.
Depending on your living situation, this may be easy for you (you have a separate room or area in your home), or a bit more challenging (you live in a smaller space).
Keep an area or spot where you focus on just your work.
If you’re in a smaller space, you will have to get more creative.
One solution I’ve come across is if you’re sitting at a table, sit in a different spot than you would for other things (like eating), and only sit in that spot if you are working.
It’s like the solution of changing your wallpaper: a small thing, but can be oh-so-effective. I’ve made use of the “different spot at the table” for myself and it works very well.
I’m sure you’ve tried at some point working in your pajamas while in bed. It doesn’t work (although you can work in your pajamas if you want).
3. Have A Slack Channel For Leaving The Office.
This is a clever solution that someone shared with me that they use at their organization.
A problem their organization was facing with the shift of working from home is that people weren’t signing off at the normal time as in-office.
If you’re in-office, it’s easy to see people leave and know that you should be packing up as well.
When everything is over Slack or whatever tool your team is using? It’s more challenging.
So what they ended up doing was creating a Slack channel specifically for people to say that they were done for the day and “leaving the office”. They found this was an excellent way to help people with work-life balance while working from home.
4. Have A Reset After You Are Done Work.
This was another solution that was shared in a conversation about shutting down after work that I thought was super brilliant.
A worker was having struggles shutting their mind off work while at home, as they were working in-office before.
What did they do?
After they were done work, they’d walk to where they were dropped off from the train and then walk home. They used this as a way to partially replicate their routine of coming home from work while in-office, and found it worked for helping keep work and home separate.
Try something similar to this and see what works for you. It could be anything from a run, to meditating. My advice is to get outside the house for a bit and then return.
5. Use Site & App Blockers.
It’s easy to feel temptation of checking our email or Slack after-hours instead of waiting until the morning.
What’s one to do? It’s easier to say “just don’t look at until tomorrow” than actually doing so.
However, there’s plenty of apps you can make use of to make sure you follow through with this.
The one I use personally is FREEDOM.
*Disclosure: The link above is an affiliate link.*
You can set hours for when certain sites can be blocked, and is highly customizable, and works across multiple devices.
Use Freedom or similar apps to help keep that work-life balance as you work from home.
6. No Slack Or Work Email On Your Phone.
This ties in with the previous tip, but I also wanted to distinguish as its own.
Again, it’s easy to be checking work email or slack while on your phone after-hours. Just a quick glance, right?
Well, that can easily turn into a long period of time if you’re not careful.
What’s an easy solution to this? Just delete your email or apps like slack off your phone, and keep them to your work computer.
Of course, you can also make use of FREEDOM to ensure you don’t.
Conclusion.
We’re in uncertain times right now with the future of work. It can be weeks or months before things return to normal.
Make use of these tips to help with work-life balance while working from home and share them with your organization.
I wish you all the best.
Have any other tips you want to share? Leave a comment below.
