I have now been working from home for almost six months, although I know that for many people reading this, it's probably been a lot longer than that, so maybe some of the things I mention in this post will be good reminders for you, even though I'm only just starting to learn these lessons myself.
1. It's Okay To Find It Hard
This one applies to any kind of job, whether you're working from home or not, but I've been finding my job quite difficult recently, because we're currently in quite a busy season. I sometimes feel bad for finding my job difficult because I am so grateful for it, as a bad day at my current job isn't even anywhere close to a 'bad day' at my previous job. However, I'm learning to understand that feeling like my job is tricky is entirely normal, and it doesn't mean that I'm not grateful for it. Nobody loves their job every single day, and a few bad days doesn't mean that I should quit, pack a bag, change my name and move to Mexico. It is just that - a few bad days. I applied for my job knowing that I would be working from home, at least for the foreseeable, (and my office has now decided that will continue to as what we do doesn't require us being in the office for eight hours a day, five days a week), but if you're someone who was accustomed to working in person, and you were forced into remote working in 2020, I imagine that's a really tough adjustment to make, especially if you don't like it and you thought it would be over by now. Allow yourself to admit that it's hard, and you're allowed to have hard days even in a job that you love. In the words of Glennon Doyle, we can do hard things.
2. Daily Mental Health Walk
The team that I work in did a monthly step challenge for the first few months when I started working there, and I had such an incredible work/life balance at that time - likely because I was still training and I didn't have the full workload that I do now, but also probably because I went outside to take a walk every single lunch time, and then I did the same as soon as my shift ended at 4pm. I've not always naturally been someone who walks a lot and gains a lot of steps every day, so I did this to have something impressive to input into the steps spreadsheet, so that I wasn't embarrassed by my contribution to the team (I still was, as I was tracking between 5000-6000 steps a day, where some of them were doing up to 30,000 a day, but it was still something, okay?!) Anyway, I digress. The point I'm making here is that I was much happier because I was going outside twice a day, every day, and being outside of the house meant that I absolutely was not eating lunch at my laptop because I wasn't even in the same room as it.
3. Eat Away from your Laptop
Please don't eat lunch at your makeshift desk - go outside, take a walk, smell the roses. I'm getting back into the habit of doing this, and it has massively helped me enjoy my life more. I'm in the UK and we really don't have that much longer of daylight and sunshine which we actually want to venture out into. Let's not waste it.
4. Don't Have Anything Work-Related on your Phone
You remember when I left teaching and I said that my biggest problem with it was how we were all just expected to bring work home, and work and work into the night until everything was finished because there wasn't any feasible way to complete everything during working hours? Yeah, don't do that. In any job. I work entirely remotely, so my version of repeating that pattern would be to have my emails on my phone etc, and reply to them even on my days off. I've never done this once and I'm so proud of myself for it. Once 4pm hits, or that out of office, (speaking of which - take your PTO!!!), goes on, I switch off. As I should, and just like you should, too. This one leads me on very nicely to...
5. Get Comfortable Leaving Work with Unfinished Work
This is something that I've struggled with in the past because I have a type A personality and I like to end the day with absolutely nothing left on my to-do list, but you know what? Sometimes that just isn't possible. Some days will have tasks that you have to prioritise on that particular day which means that some of your other tasks will fall by the wayside, and you'll have to pick them up tomorrow. That's okay. I still log out at 4pm whether I have emails left in my inbox or not, because I have to for my health. As long as I know that I've spent the time productively, e.g. by focussing on something more pressing, then I accept that I did the most important thing/s I had to do for that day, and that's the end of it. I'm proud of myself every day that I leave work when I still have work to do, because it's hard to do, and I wasn't always able to do it when I first started working remotely, but I can now, and I encourage you to, as well. That quiet time when you log in the next morning at 8am where nothing is really going on is the perfect time to catch up, not when you're supposed to be winding down for the evening. No, sir.
Share more tips if you have them! xo
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