Five Tips For Staying Productive When Working From Home
You got the e-mail that the company you are working, broke the lease, and you are not going back to the office in Fall 2021. Below are five things that you might find helpful to adjust.
First thing first, working from home means you are working. Your brain might perceive the home environment as if you are not working hard, which is a trick. If you are not reminding yourself that working from home means you are working, you might end up feeling burnout by not setting up boundaries with your workday, schedule, and breaks. You might found yourself in the situation trying to overcompensate these feelings that come from your feelings of not working hard enough by working more hours, not taking lunch, short breaks.
You want to feel productive and accomplish tasks and complete projects according to the deadline by the end of the day. Surprisingly productivity is an umbrella term. When you think about productivity first thing that comes to your mind is work. Let me give a simple analogy. Think about a car. For a vehicle to run smoothly on the roads, you need to put gas, you need to have yearly maintenance of the car to make sure no parts are broken. We are even more complex than a machine, but we tend to forget simple rules for taking care of ourselves. By reminding yourself that having lunch in a designated area is essential to feel productive, by reminding yourself that having short breaks are helping to recharge you increasing your productivity in the broader sense.
Let's go back to pre-COVID times. You were waking up, putting on work clothes, having breakfast, going outside to take a train, waiting for a train, being on the train ride with all the "perks" of NYC commute, taking steps to the office, saying hi to co-workers and the list continues. I even did not list all activities, but by having a glimpse, we can notice that pre-covid times created a lot of change of scenarios and distractions prior you sit at your desk and work. According to neuroscience research creating different kinds of distraction, we give our brain an opportunity to rest, and when the time comes, our brain resuming working. Working from home set up in a way deprives us lots of natural distraction that office work create. By realizing that our brain needs distractions, we can help ourselves by reminding ourselves to do some activities on purpose. For example,
you can go outside to buy coffee
you can do 5 minutes workout
you can call or text a friend
you can make a body stretch
you can have a snack
you can drink water
Working from home requires boundaries and routines. If you found yourself in the situation sitting in PJ in front of your laptop at 6 am in the morning responding to e-mails, this path will not lead to being productive rather exhausted by the end of the day. Humans thrive on routines and predictability. Ask yourself a question, what daily habits will help you be productive working from home? It does not have to be something complicated and hard to implement. It can be an easy task. By doing these tasks every day, not only when the sky is blue, we create a structure in our work from home environment. These are some thoughts that you turn in routine.
What is going through your mind when you have an image of yourself when you work from home? Definitely not a manager who is sitting behind you. Even though you do not have your boss sitting in a nearby cubical, you might found yourself internalizing a rigid office set of rules. You might ask me a question how can it show up in my working from the home situation? It might be manifested when you put pressure on yourself when working more than eight-hour days, not taking care of yourself, not prioritizing your needs. By recognizing our inner-critic inside of us or by bringing awareness to an unhelpful mindset, we start supporting ourselves through a journey of working from home.
What has been like for you working from home? What have you find helpful or not helpful? How do you support yourself through this journey? I had the privilege to work with clients, support them, help them to develop coping skills, and witness their resilience through the pandemic. Your journey matters. What stopping you from healing? I provide a free-15 minute consultation call when you can learn more about how I can help you to become productive and resilient when working from home.
