Tips for Working from Home
Working from home has become everyone’s reality for 2020. Realistically, working from home should be the same as working in an office. You dedicate 8 hours of your day to your job and your commute is only steps away. So we went ahead and compiled some tips for working from home.
It is important to limits distractions, like kids. However, all things 2020, we need to work from home with our kids present, and teach them, amongst other things.
First of all, please be gentle with yourself. Remember, no one person should have to be a parent, a teacher and an employee at the same time. It is not possible to give 100% to each of those things simultaneously. When you’re exhausted by 1:30pm and can’t fathom making another meal for the family, that’s ok! Cereal is a perfectly acceptable dinner and pajamas are clothes. The rest of these are tips that can make working from home a little smoother, but again might not be able to happen because you have to be a parent, a teacher and a chef.
Dedicate an area as your office. Make a corner in your bedroom, kitchen or utilize the spare bedroom, that your family knows when you are in that space, you are working. If in an open shared space, make a sign that shows you are working and not to be interrupted.
Get up, walk around at least once an hour. Make sure you pay attention to how long you’ve been sitting and get up and get some water.
Structure your day. Plan for when you will shower and get dressed and what time you will take your lunch. If the kids are home when can you dedicate time to help them? When do you have to be on that zoom call?
Don’t start big activities on your short breaks. Planning to change over the laundry or empty the dishwasher is doable. But starting to reorganize your garage is something that you may lose track of time and find that you used an hour break instead of 15 minutes.
Know when it’s time to clock out. Because we are so busy multitasking, it is easy to keep working past that 5 or 6pm mark. It is important that part of the structure in our day, is that time we start and stop work. Family time and self-care time is just as important as our jobs, if not more, because it will help us to be a better employee.
If you feel like you are struggling with the mental exhaustion from 2020, give Harper therapy a call at 813-434-3639. You can set up a free consultation with one of our Therapists and find that you are not alone.
