How to beat work-from-home burnout?
Working from home can be great, but one thing we know for sure, it’s not exactly for everyone.
Even if you, like myself here, have been doing it for ages and actually enjoy its many perks, working from home during a global pandemic is a whole other story — especially if you fall into an inadequate pattern or routine.
In a survey of nearly 8,500 people carried out by Keio University in Japan, 35% of employees who work from home said it impacted their mental health.
Meanwhile, another survey of 9,000+ people by CNBC and SurveyMonkey found that 48% of employees are currently working from home. Meanwhile, 27% want to continue to work from home and 36% would like to work from home more often going forward.
How do make work from homework for you
With 80% of our GAT Labs team successfully supporting our customers from home long before it became necessary, you can say we explored every aspect there, from remote work security to combating remote work burnout. Now let us give you our best insight there:
1. Wake up, Freshen up
Make it a rule, never wake up and start working right away in your PJs!
As tempting as it may feel in the morning, this might just be a huge catalyst to this ‘’ remote work burnout’ feeling.
Our bodies, just like our computers, need to ‘start-up’. This can mean different things to different people. However, you don’t want to skip that step.
Take a morning shower, change your PJs, and slip into something nice & comfy, do some pre-work exercise or even go for a short run.
2. Physically & Mentally Separate from your Work Space
Separating work life and home life can be difficult when working from home. Make sure not to juggle both simultaneously, that doesn’t work.
You need to define your work hours, and breaks and set up your home office away from where you usually spend the rest of your day or sleep (if possible).
Otherwise, you may feel like you’re constantly at the office which can cause remote work burnout very easily.
Perhaps you can set up a NEW ‘Break routine’ away from your workspace. Eat lunch outside, take your dog for a walk — whatever recharges you better, do it, just make sure that you don’t blend in your breaks and work hours.
3. Turn that Camera ON — Even if You Don’t Feel Like it
Ay yeah, it can be painful sometimes, but guess what? This is often the push you need…
Not only does it motivate you to dress a little bit more professionally, but it also helps you communicate better with your colleagues, break that isolation cycle and combat work-from-home burnout.
4. Bring Back Team Networking & Happy Hours
Speaking of isolation, monotony can be one of the easiest traps to fall into. Add to that social distancing and you got the perfect recipe for work-from-home (and general) burnout.
If you’re used to working in an office, one of the first things you’ll notice you miss is the constant interaction with your co-workers. I bet they miss it too.
That’s why team networking initiatives are a great way to keep the team spirit strong as well as make up for that lost human interaction.
Here at GAT Labs, we hold bi-weekly bite-sized learning sessions to discuss general life topics like minimalism for a change. These sessions are usually super fun and interactive and we always come out having learned something new.
There are many other refreshing ways to do it. From virtual Friday happy hours to Bingo time or even simple recurrent team meetings to just catch up on ‘’anything’’ besides work.
5. Don’t Abuse it
I can’t stress that one enough!
When you’re working from home, it’s very easy to start abusing it even without even realizing it — ‘Abuse’ here means working too little or even too much.
Just because you can work anytime now you might be tempted to catch up on pending tasks more and take less time to actually recharge.
Also, for those who don’t have a defined routine yet, getting distracted with other life-related tasks can be easy and actually make you less productive.
Find the right balance there and maintain it. This will keep you stay motivated, maximize your work-from-home approach and avoid burnout.
Guilty of any of these mistakes? — time to make some changes then?
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