How To Make Time for Yourself While Working Remotely.
How do you make time for yourself while working remotely, maintaining a healthy work-life balance?
Let me ask you this: Do you personally enjoy working from home? Because like with most things, there are pros and cons to remote working. I miss people when I work from home too much.
On the bright side, you no longer have to worry about being stuck in traffic or missing the train. You don’t have to wake up early to get dressed up and pack your lunch. You don’t have to waste money on petrol or other means of transportation. All in all, working remotely seems like a pretty sweet deal. At least, at first.
But after some time, things start to change. Or better yet, your perception of things changes. Because you’re home most of the time, you can start feeling socially isolated. In fact, studies prove this. According to researchers, social isolation can lead to anxiety and depression, which eventually leads to a 29% increase in mortality risk.
Also, the line between work and personal life starts to become blurry. You no longer have a clear work schedule and you just find yourself working at 9 PM on a Friday. Yep! remote working will do that to you. The opposite can also happen. Your concentration can drop and instead of working, you find yourself scrolling through your social media feeds.
No matter if you love or hate remote working, the reality is that it’s here to stay for at least another couple of months. And if you want to work better and also get to enjoy your free time, then try following these tips:
Create a Special Work Space
You probably heard this already. You might have even done this at the beginning of your remote working experience. But slowly, you started taking your laptop to the kitchen and taking calls from your bed.
No more of that! It’s time for you to create a brand new workspace. If you have a study that you can use, then wonderful, but if you don’t have that extra room, you can simply use the desk in your room. If you don’t have one in your room, then temporarily convert your kitchen table to a desk.
You need to recreate your office space. Fill this desk space with things that you need to perform your job and that also reminds you of your work. Such things can be your electronic devices, folders, pens, agendas, your coffee mug, and so on. Remove anything that is or can become a distraction while remote working.
Also, make sure that everything is neat and organized so you have an easier time moving your work belongings to another place.
Stick to a Schedule
This is one of the most important pieces of advice I can give: stick to a schedule and include planned breaks from your screen. Remember when work started at 08:30 and you had to be there on time? Well, things might not be the same when working from home.
Without a schedule, remote work might be a lot more casual and relaxing, but that doesn’t mean you can slack off. In fact, you should be using this no-pressure atmosphere to concentrate on your tasks.
Now, you might be rolling your eyes at me, but let me tell you what happens when you don’t stick to a schedule. Your work tasks can drag on all day long. Instead of finishing at 17:00 and being free for the rest of the day, you’re going to keep on being distracted and you will finish your tasks late at night. This can trigger a lot of bad habits related to your sleeping schedule, which in turn will take a toll on your health. Late-night screen time is not good for a good night’s sleep.
And this is not even the worst that can happen. If you’re a procrastinator, you might even push your tasks to the end of the week. That’s going to trigger a lot of stress and anxiety, which, again, are not great for your health.
So the best thing is to pick a schedule and stick to it. If you have trouble concentrating, then make a to-do list at the beginning of each day and push yourself to check all the boxes. Once you get a solid schedule, you’ll notice that you’ll have a lot more free time for yourself.
Don’t Forget About Your Hobbies
Are you living alone? Or are you sharing a home with your family? If you’re living with friends or family, then it’s quite likely that you don’t have that much time for yourself. You either spend your time working or doing chores with your family.
Although it’s great that you’re not alone and the chances of social isolation drop, you still need some time to yourself. The best way to do this is to implement some ‘me-time.’
Some people need time for themselves just once a week. Others might need it daily. Try to figure out how much time you need to accord yourself and include that in your routine.
For example, You like running. You figured that you would need some ‘me-time three times a week, so Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday you run. That’s the time you spend doing something that you enjoy and that relaxes you. You’re basically doing that for yourself. This is a way to show self-care.
Now, you might want to do things such as taking a bath, painting your nails, doing some work on the house in your ‘me-time.’ We usually tend to think that these are also ways of showing yourself self-care, and they might be. But these things are actually more related to self-maintenance, rather than self-care, which might make them chores. Sure, they are chores that you do for yourself and that you benefit from, but they are still chores nonetheless.
So in your spare time, do something you actually love that keeps you moving towards a healthier you.
Ask for Help if You Need It
Doing all of these things and creating a balanced delimitation between your work and your personal life might be easy for some. But for others, it can be less obvious and complicated. And it’s even more complicated asking for help. After all, who can you even reach out to?
The answer here is a life coach.
If you don’t know where to start, and you’re just feeling tired of juggling work and your household, then you might need the professional help of a coach.
A life coach can help you put your life back on track and offer you support in more than one department. Whether you’re struggling with work or with your health, a coach can simply jump in and point you in the right direction.
And you don’t even have to look far, because you have a certified life coach right here, right now. So if you think my guidance would benefit you, then reach out and let me help you.