5 Tips to Effectively Working at Home

5 Tips to Effectively Working at Home

I’ve been working from home off and on for many years. Even with that, the working from home situation that COVID-19 brought was different than those before. For one, you weren’t able to go out for lunch and meet people to get your social interactions. With businesses opening up slowly, hopefully things will start to change. I have my fingers crossed.  

I wanted to share, through my experience before COVID, and through COVID, the top 5 tips to effectively working at home. For some of you, these might be too late, but for lots working from home will stay in place for the foreseeable future.

Set your morning routine

Get up, have breakfast, perhaps even make a lunch. Do the things you would normally do in the morning if you were travelling into work. Your body and your mind knows those as your morning work routines. Stumbling out of bed and sitting in front if your computer is tough to mentally engage. 

Instead, set up a morning routine. Okay, it doesn’t have to be the same as when you were going into work. Making a lunch might be a little much, but I know people who do it. The point is, do something that mentally, physically (for those who like to work out, or go for a run or walk before work), and emotionally prepares you for work. Set a routine and follow up for at least 15-30 minutes before you engage in work. You well-being will thank you!

Set working expectations and boundaries

Set a working space with your significant other and your kids. Ideally something that’s not in the main traffic area of your house. When at the working space, you are “at work”. With COVID, many are embracing their families being around, introducing their children on calls, and being OK with family in the background on video calls. So don’t be frustrated if your son needs to ask something, or your daughter needs a snack.  

It’s beneficial to have a boundaries, but this doesn’t mean that family can’t talk to you. It just means “you’re working”. If they have important questions or things to share, or just a hug, come on in! But you now reserve the right to use the boundary. It’s not to be rude by any means, and distractions are absolutely OK. Think about conversations you have with co-workers or going for coffee. Those things are important interactions. Having them at home is great, but just like at work – “Thanks for the chat Tom, I better get back to work”, set that same expectation at home – “That’s fantastic kiddo. I’m so proud of you! You tell me all about it at lunch (or after my 10 o’clock call), OK?”

Take Breaks

At work you don’t just sit at your desk all day, do you? You go for coffee, chat with Larry from Accounting, or Megan from Marketing about what happened over the weekend. You engage in social activity. Don’t forget to do that at home. It might be a 15 min coffee break where you daughter tells you about what cool bug she found at the park, or your significant other about what’s happening at their work.

Call a work buddy and chat about their weekend. Take a virtual coffee with someone. It’s incredibly easy to stay heads down at work when you’re the only one there. As restrictions lift, you can start to venture out of the house as well. 

Get out of the House

I never thought I’d miss the commute to and from work. Depending on clients and the time of day, from where I live outside of Calgary, Alberta, it can take up to an hour and half to get to work, and home. Heaven for bid there’s a traffic jam on Deerfoot Trail!

But one thing that I found missing is the wind up to, and wind down after work. After work, driving home, listening to music, an audio-book, or my favorite podcast, allows me to wind down mentally. Feeling more refreshed when I get home. 

When working from home, you can come right off a stressful meeting directly into family life, dinner, homework, etc. There’s no mental separation for you, and ultimately for your family. You’re frustration from one can blend into the other. Take some time to get out of the house. Garden for a bit after work, go for a walk, run, bike-ride, or even just a drive to Tim Hortons for a Iced Capp (so my American friends, your missing out!) whatever your vice. In the midst of the COVID lock down, my wife was the one going to the stores. With weather, work, and just my mental stability, I spent 7 days without even stepping outside until I realized the toll it was taking. Just being the one to head to a store once, or taking my son who’s learning to drive around the town helped a lot!

Go Home

When you leave work, you go home. Some of you pick up work at home sure, but many log off and do “other things”. Mow the lawn, make dinner, go for a walk. It’s easy to go to your computer for one more question, answer one more email, follow up on one more thing. Mentally you’ve been at that computer, at that table or desk, in that room all day. You’re broken down that mental barrier. It’s easier to walk over for one more thing when you’re working from home. It’s a little more mental effort to get home, open your laptop or computer, log into work and do that one last thing when you were working from the office. 

Respect the boundaries of work and home. When work is done, log off and resist the temptation to log back in. 99% of the time, that one last thing, that important email, if you did it tomorrow, nothing would change. Except for your health of course. 

Mental burnout is a very real concern for those working from home. It takes a discipline to stay on target and get your work done when at home. It’s easy to get distracted and stay on target. But, I’d argue it takes even more discipline to set your work-life boundaries and stick to them. Obviously there are exceptions to the rules, deadlines you might have for next week, a report that needs to be sent by tomorrow morning, etc. But, as is the case in many aspects of life, those should be the just that, exceptions. The norm should be a good balance of work, breaks, productivity, and them home life.

As an employer, I understand that the health of the people that work for me is massively important. If you burn-out, my productivity stops. If you’re happy, if you like what you’re doing, and more important you’re taking care of your mental and physical health, your happy with me, with our company, and your productivity remains constant.

Don’t burn-out before you decide to change.