Many of us have had to suddenly adapt to working from home rather than in an office. This change and uncertainty can be unsettling. This is why it’s extremely important to practice self-care and maintain positive mental health habits during your adaptation to this new working adjustment.
There are many things you can do to maintain mental health, feel better, and lift your mood while working from home.
Avoiding work-related stress through routine
Stress can have detrimental impacts on your mental health and wellbeing. It distracts you from work, provokes anxious feelings, and if not dealt with properly, can lead to depression as well as other mental or physical impairments.
Working from home can give you more flexibility, but with that flexibility comes increased responsibility. If you don’t manage your time effectively, you can experience stress as your workload becomes too much for you to handle.
Planning structured workdays can allow you to gain more control over your work and in turn, decrease your work-related stress.
WFH Self-Care Tip #1
Establish your working hours and location
It’s a lot easier to put your work off when you’re at home, and simply tell yourself that you’ll do it later. However, two minutes later can quickly turn into an hour later and before you know it, you’ve only got an hour left to finish a big project. Make time to create a working schedule that fits with your life.
Plan your workday around essential activities that you have to get done, such as buying/preparing and eating meals. If you are transitioning from working in an office, try to stick to the set hours you had previously, as this will make it easier for you to adapt to remote working.
In addition to this, make sure you choose a location to work in that has a lot of natural light and is quiet. Keep your desk tidy, but add small personal touches, to make it a more inviting and comfortable environment to work in.
WFH Self-Care Tip #2
Set implementation intentions
It’s one thing to set working hours, but actually sticking to them can be quite difficult. If you find it hard to stick to working hours, or you find that you are constantly delaying the time in which you’ll start working, setting implementation intentions can be helpful.
Intentions are statements of purpose. These statements are either verbally announced or written that states the action you will be doing, followed by the time and the place it will be completed in.
The statement should look like this: “I will [behavior] at [time] in [place].”
Saying or writing this down drastically increases the chances of you actually participating in the behavior. An implementation intention can be used to help you begin work at the right time or can even be used to help you get started on an individual task you have to complete.
WFH Self-Care Tip #3
Fit in breaks
There aren’t many things that are worse for your mental health than sitting at your desk for eight hours straight. Cramming may seem like an effective way to finish as many tasks as possible, however, it has the opposite effect. We can not concentrate for long periods of time, so when we work on a task for hours on end, our concentration and alertness progressively decrease.
We need time to refresh our minds by taking breaks, in order to maintain focus on your work-related tasks. There are many different theories concerning the optimal timing of breaks, but here are the three common working methods: a method which adheres to our ultradian rhythms (90 minutes of work, followed by a small break) the DeskTime variation (52 minutes of work, followed by a 17 minute break) and the Pomodoro technique (25 minutes of work followed by a 5 minute break).
They are all quite different, so the key is to experiment and distinguish which break technique works best for you!
WFH Self-Care Tip #4
Prioritize smart working over hard working
When you overwork, your mental health can start to decrease. It is critical to work in the most efficient way possible, so you don’t waste hours due to poor planning.
Implementing techniques that allow you to work faster and more effectively will also allow you to have extra time to do non-work-related activities. This can improve mental health as you will begin to feel ahead of your workload, rather than having your work responsibilities constantly over your head while trying to enjoy leisure time.
WFH Self-Care Tip #5
Start early and aim to finish early
If a certain job is due within a week, it may take you six days before you start the task, as you think you can get it done within one day. It may be true that you can complete the task in a short timeframe, but there is no point in dragging the task out just because you know you can complete it in the last minute.
Starting the task when you have time and aiming to finish it early will allow you to feel more on top of your workload. It also means that if something needs to be changed, you’ll have left sufficient time to do so, rather than rushing and producing poor quality work.
Additionally, the longer you put off the task, the more mental energy you use thinking about how you will need to eventually complete it. This mental energy eats away at the pleasure you should be experiencing while relaxing.
WFH Self-Care Tip #6
Avoid multitasking and prioritize your tasks
When you multitask, you constantly switch in and out of tasks and your attention span begins to decrease. When you “multitask”, you’re not even multitasking at all, you’re just task switching. It would be a much more efficient use of your time to focus on one task at a time, so that your concentration stays with the details of the task at hand.
This enables you to complete it faster. Furthermore, prioritizing your tasks also increases work effectiveness. Too often, we work on tasks that appear to be the easiest, leaving the large projects with scarily close deadlines to the side. Think about which tasks are the most urgent and important to complete, and make sure to work on those first.
WFH Self-Care Tip #7
Let go of perfectionism
“Maybe there’s a better way to phrase this, perhaps I’ll check it again, for the tenth time.” If you catch yourself having this thought, or thoughts similar to this, please stop overanalyzing your work. Of course, checking over your work is crucial in order to fix small errors and rethink ideas.
However, sometimes it’s easy to take it too far. If you spend your time constantly worrying that your work isn’t perfect, you’ll end up with nothing. Try your best, but know that the more you work at something, the more you’ll organically improve at it.
Learn to accept that perfection is not attainable and completing something is much better than completing nothing, just because you’re worried that it won’t be good enough.
Creating a good work-life balance
Many of us who work from home can often feel isolated and disconnected from others. These negative feelings can sometimes cause us to disregard our own mental and physical health. Although it’s easy to fall into this trap while working from home, there are also some ways to combat these negative feelings.
Making sure that you don’t get too caught up in your work-life and taking time out to participate in activities you enjoy is vital when it comes to maintaining good mental health. Here, we will discuss how you can have an improved work-life balance.
Look after your health
Overworking can often cause us to place less value on our own health. However, if you don’t look after yourself, you won’t be able to work well. Your health and self-care should always be at the top of your priority list. Taking good care of yourself will enable you to thrive in over areas of your life.
Ensure you are getting between 7-9 hours of sleep, regularly exercising, eating healthy and nutritious meals, and aiming to drink 8 glasses of water a day. In addition to these, try to practice meditation or mindfulness activities. Meditation and mindfulness activities help to calm your mind and body, as well as shifting your attention to the present moment.
Keep in contact with others
Working alone can definitely make you feel lonely at times. Scheduling regular catchups with co-workers, friends, and family can make you feel more connected. If you’re unable to meet in person, allocate time for a video chat or phone call. These are preferred when compared to texting, as they are more personal forms of connection.
Maintaining relationships with co-workers is especially important when it comes to working from home, as having solid connections can increase work engagement and motivation levels. Check-in with your colleagues regularly to see how they’re doing; this will let them know that you value them, and they will most likely return the favor.
Take the right kind of breaks
Earlier, we established the importance of breaks, but it’s equally important to recognize the difference between taking the “right” and “wrong” kinds of breaks.
Firstly, remove yourself from your working environment. If you are working on a desk in your bedroom, move to another area of the house, or even outside.
Secondly, switch the task you are doing. If you were using a computer or laptop for work, looking at your phone screen will not be the best thing to do to refresh your brain. Take a break from the screen and do some cleaning or perhaps call a friend or workmate.
Thirdly, take time to exercise and go outside. During at least one of your breaks, stretch your muscles or walk in nature. Both of these activities promote good mental and physical health and will help refresh your mind.
Try implementing these strategies so that you can better your mental health while working from home. Focusing on even one strategy can make a huge difference! Let me know how it goes. xoxo Mo
