You’re likely living under a rock, or maybe in Antartica (only continent with no confirmed cases of Coronavirus), if you haven’t been affected by what’s going on in our country and our world. We are dealing with a full-on, global pandemic and to put it lightly, it’s scary. The best way to describe the last week and a half is simply, The Twilight Zone. Things have virtually shut down in Ohio, as have much of the country as I’m writing this today. Since March 13, I’ve been out of my house a grand total of three times, and I have to say, it’s weird.
Like I said, Twilight Zone-vibes for sure.
Since everything began shutting down on March 15, I’ve been fortunate enough to continue my day-to-day work from home with minimal disruption, but I know that’s not the case for everyone. With kids out of school, families are feeling the stress of trying to juggle it all.
While I’m no expert on balancing screaming kids with spreadsheets and conference calls, I have learned some tips along the way on how to successfully work from home while minimizing distraction. Let’s face it, working from home is a whole new challenge when it comes to keeping structure and focus, kids or no kids. I’ve put together a few tips that have really worked for me. Hopefully you can incorporate these into your new routine, if you haven’t already.
6 Tips for Working From Home
Routine, routine, routine. I can’t stress this enough. You’ve got to nail down a routine. The first time I worked from home, I was mindlessly wandering around the house half the day, distracted by everything under the sun. I slept in much later than I should’ve, missed my morning rituals, stumbled into my inbox and spent the rest of the day in a hazy fog. Yeah, that never happened again.
Figure out your wake up time and set your alarm. Create time in the morning to do the essentials, whatever those might be for you. For me, I need my hot water with lemon and collagen powder, before my coffee. It gives my body and immune health the kickstart it needs. I cannot stress the importance of immune health right now. Be sure you don’t skip this step, whatever those rituals might be.
Learn to time block. I learned this tip from a fellow blogger, Lauryn Evarts Bosstick from The Skinny Confidential. She raves about it all the time and it works. Simply put, you block off designated time throughout your day to do that one thing. This limits distraction and increases creativity since you’re giving your focus to one task, instead of multiple. One way I time block is that while I’m sipping my coffee (usually from 9:00 – 10:00 a.m.) I give myself time to answer all emails, clean out my inbox and make my priority list for the day. I don’t do ANYTHING else during that time. Break up your entire day (if you can) into blocks of time. I linked a productivity cube that works great for time blocking below.
Designate a lunch break. I know we aren’t necessarily punching the clock per se, but stepping away for 30 minutes to an hour does wonders! Go for a walk (we can still do that, though I’ll admit, I need to do more of this), call a friend or loved one, read a book, organize something in your home. Just do something non-work related. Give your mind the much needed break it deserves.
Get dressed. I think this goes without saying that I’m not talking about putting on your full business attire (hello, what kind of person do you think I am?) but maybe changing out of your pajamas and into an athleisure ensemble (fancy way of saying yoga pants if I’m honest) and doing your hair. You never want to have a Zoom meeting sprung on you at the last minute and your hair is sitting atop your head like a bird’s nest. One tip, ditch the makeup but not the skincare. Maybe if you have no Zoom calls, you could even consider a midday face mask (though it would make for an interesting call if you did, ha!) PS: I’ve included some of my favorite loungewear below
Find a designated workspace. This is another essential for productive work from home days (or weeks in our case.) Find a spot in your home and set it up for success. Have your pen, paper, necessary files, maybe a candle for some zen and your headphones available to pop in should you need to drown out the noise. If you have everything you need next to you, you won’t have to get up as often, therefore limiting those distractions (hello, Netflix.)
Create boundaries. In this always-connected world we live in, we seem to be tethered to our devices 24/7 and this can create some serious issues. Make sure that you are devoting time in your evening for unwinding, spending quality time with your family and/or spouse and feeding your soul as I like to call it. Aim to “sign-off” from work at a decent time. I usually close up my work space around the time I would be getting home from the office. I don’t make a habit of answering emails past this time because I don’t want to create the illusion that I’m always “on” because I am not. This is the best way I can create a work-life balance. Remember, boundaries are healthy and essential.
I hope these tips have inspired you or reinforced your reasoning for what you’ve already been doing. We are definitely navigating in uncharted territory right now and trying to do our best to keep things afloat. I’d love to hear any additional tips or ideas you’ve incorporated into this new “normal” we are living in right now. I wish you all the best during these scary times. Stay healthy my loves!
