Until a few months ago, working from home (WFH) was never the norm for the majority. Yet things have changed. With the Covid-19 situation being declared as a worldwide pandemic, most workplaces had to close down to prevent the further spread of the virus. Office-goers were suddenly ‘ordered’ to work from home overnight – and like it or not, they have to adjust to this new working style without any preamble.
Being a full-time WFH online business owner since a few years back, I was blessed with the privilege of having more experience in this area. As such, I decided to share some of my insights on how one should manage WFH more efficiently. Hopefully, my ideas will help people around me – including you – avoid potential hiccups caused by WFH.
Insight 1: Treat ‘Work’ as the Accumulation of Individual ‘Tasks’
Now, if you have been going into an office for years, all the different tasks thrown at you can begin to blur into one big category of “work”. You would probably think that you need to give your undivided attention to this “single entity” during the 9-to-5 schedule to show your loyalty, devotion, and productivity – because that’s all you’ve ever known throughout your career. And this is exactly what you should do at home too, now that you are not allowed to work at your office.
Ideal as it may seem, this arrangement is never going to work out when you start WFH. Why? Because at home, I am bound to face distractions from my parents, spouses, children, pets, the postman, etc, during the 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. hours. Thus, if you start WFH with the pre-set notion that those hours should be strictly allocated for work, you are only going to end up getting frustrated and venting negative emotions on your loved ones if they come along your way – which they definitely will.
So, here’s the first piece of advice I’d like to give you when you start WFH: Strip away the idea of being “clocked in”. Start to see ‘work’ for what it truly is – the accumulation of many individual ‘tasks’, instead of a single entity.
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Remember, a ‘task’ is just something that you need to accomplish by a certain date, and you are allowed to take breaks between ‘tasks’, so long as you complete them on time. This means that you can divert your attention to other non-work ‘tasks’, be it to walking away from a project every 45 minutes for a break, attend to your inquisitive children’s questions, or small talk with your spouse, during your work hours. Do not be so rigid in your thinking, and feel that you need to be glued to your workstation as you WFH.
After all, you’re expected to be creative in your execution of different tasks, and it makes perfect sense to be creative about how you go about accomplishing them too. You are stuck at home with work tasks taking time away from your personal life anyway, so why not be the one to decide which hours it’s going to take away from you? Trust me, if you’re meeting deadlines with good work, no one is going to be there to tell you ‘no’.
Insight 2: Mental Health Shouldn’t Take a Backseat
Now, this is a difficult period for everyone. I am all going without the things I need – face-to-face contact with my family (if I am staying away from them), reduced socialization activities with friends, and restricted movement around the community. At some point, life becomes demonstrably harder to enjoy without these things, and everyone struggling to cope with that.
Other than that, WFH is not as easy as it seems. I am sure many of you would have realized by now how hard it is. I have to maintain boundaries between my professional and personal lives when I WFH. As my afternoons blend into evenings and weekdays blend into weekends, I started to have difficulties distinguishing ‘work-time’ from ‘rest-time’. Especially since I am at my home – my refuge for respite – 24/7 now, the physical boundary between work and life is literally gone. All these add up to me having little sense of time-offs, making me even more stressed than usual.
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Given the possibility that this situation might continue for months to come, life ahead seems bleak. Yet it is precisely during such times I have to take better care of myself. There’s nothing shameful to admit that you have to take respite for your mental well-being. Ultimately, you know yourself the best – thus you should know what’s good for your health.
Taking care of yourself can be something very simple, like having a cup of coffee and a snack at 3 p.m. every day. Or maybe you like reading in the middle of the day – then do it as much as possible, provided that you don’t fall behind your work too much. Personally, my favorite method is this: work in ‘pockets’ of time not more than 30 minutes to 1 hour, and take 10-15 minutes breaks in between. This allows me to get recharged throughout the day, without feeling overwhelmed by all the work I have to complete. So, go ahead, and make full use of the privileges you have now to maintain a healthy mind and body.
Remember, you might owe your employers work, but they don’t get to decide what’s good for you. Of all things, mental health shouldn’t take a backseat when you WFH. Take care, stay strong, and have faith that I will survive this together!
Insight 3: More Banked Time with Less Commute
Let’s admit – for first-timers, WFH can get really inefficient sometimes. Perhaps it’s because there are kids in the house distracting you from work. Or maybe it’s just hard to adjust to a new work environment. More often than not, many of you would end up sitting down at your desks or workspaces after a good 45 minutes hustle, only to realize that you have not made any progress on your work.
Landing yourselves in such situations is indeed frustrating. But as you progress on, I hope you would learn to let go of these unavoidable hiccups, and be less hard on yourself. If only you’d look at WFH from a different angle, you would realize that this working style has great benefits.
For instance, WFH allows people to return hours to their days from the meaningless commute, thus lowering stress at work. Just recall – I have been in that awkward situation of getting stuck in traffic on the way to work before, and I would arrive at the office, all panicking and stressed up. Common sense would tell me that this is not the best way to start my day. In fact, this state of haste would clog my mind, making me tensed up and hence becoming less efficient at work.
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Other than that, studies have shown that continuous sounds given off by the usual transport means (like cars, buses, MRT/subway) are occurring at a volume your ears weren’t designed for. These sounds are what add fatigue to me when I travel home after a long day at work. In the long term, my health would be at stake. But when I WFH, all the above-mentioned situations would be resolved naturally, since I would be greatly reducing time spent on transport.
Saying that, I know some of you treat the to-and-from commute process between your home and workplace as a means to decompress. If that’s the case, you can always replace it with a 10-20 minutes’ walk around your neighborhood after you wrap up work for the day instead. This works just the same, and no one is stopping you from doing so – provided you adhere to the social distancing regulations I am subjected to nowadays.
Insight 4: Maintain Physical and Social Boundaries
Research has shown that maintaining boundaries between work and life is crucial for well-being and work engagement. More often than not, people would subconsciously perform certain acts, or “boundary-crossing activities”, when they cross over to either work or non-work roles. These activities remind people that it’s time for a change: for instance, it’s time to be the “work you” where you have to be focused on work tasks and switch to your most productive state; or it’s time to be the “home you” where you can just snuggle up to the cushions on your sofas and turn on your favorite shows.
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Such “boundary-crossing activities” can be something as simple as putting on your spectacles, to the more complicated tasks of commuting from home to work. To prevent potential burnouts, I will suggest you keep performing some form of these activities when you transit between work and rest while you WFH, even when no one’s there to actually supervise you. For example, you can put on your work attire when you sit down to work at home – nobody’s going to stop you from doing that. Casual Friday is fine, of course, but get yourself ready nonetheless so you can feel a sense of crossing over to ‘work’ from ‘rest’.
In the short term, it may be a welcome change to be able to spend all day in your pajamas. However, please be advised that adhering to your normal boundary-crossing activities is going to do you much good, so don’t abandon them altogether. I will leave you to use your creativity when coming up with ways to maintain your usual work routines!
So, here’s a summary of my insights on WFH over the last few posts:
Insight 1: Treat ‘Work’ as the Accumulation of Individual ‘Tasks’
Insight 2: Mental Health Shouldn’t Take a Backseat
Insight 3: More Banked Time with Less Commute
Insight 4: Maintain Physical and Social Boundaries
Remember, we’re all in this together, and there’s no shame in admitting that you might need more time to adjust to WFH. Keep your spirits up, and you will survive this crisis together.
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