During any infectious epidemic outbreak, people are asked to practice self-isolation. They mostly work from home.
Those not in a habit, find it difficult to be as productive as they are while working on a regular basis. You also need to take care of your loved ones along with working.
When your home becomes your workplace, it brings along new challenges. It might get hard to concentrate on tasks and figures and difficulty in being available.
Working from home has certain positives as it helps in balancing out the work-life balance. It reduces the stress that occurs while traveling to work in an overcrowded metro or being stuck in a traffic jam.
A little extra effort and discipline help raise the productivity bar while keeping self safe.
Tips For Working From Home During Self-Isolation
-
Set Up A Workplace
To work efficiently it is important to designate a workspace for yourself. This helps you to focus well as sitting in a space where you always work, sends a signal to the brain for work time.
When completed the work target, stay away from this designated space. Resist the urge to check with any professional obligation until it’s time to begin the work again.
-
Move Around
Some can’t sit at one place while working. They need a mobile workspace. In such cases, you need to set up a few spaces in the house where you can work from.
This can help your posture and also keep you moving taking care that you are not stuck in a sedentary lifestyle.
It is also important to make working space ergonomic. It helps lessen the risk factors that lead to musculoskeletal injuries and also increase the performances.
-
Get Ready
Be regular with your routine. Take a morning shower and get dressed for the day. If you exercise, do that at normal timing as it helps you stay active while working.
Wear some comfortable work clothes, do your hair and make-up and go ahead with the day.
You can also skip the make-up part if it’s not that necessary and improve skin health.
-
Set a Schedule
Schedule the whole day as in, to when you are going to work and when you would go ahead with other things. You can categorize things according to their importance.
Set up a schedule that helps you complete the work and also not forget the other home duties.
-
Eating Plan
Working from home at times makes you eat more due to the easy availability and also due to stress.(1) Also sometimes due to not having a proper schedule people tend to skip a meal.
It is important to decide the meal and snack time and avoid bringing food to the workstation.
Choose from the foods that boost memory, alertness, and concentration and limit the intake of refined carbs, processed food, and sugary drinks.(2)
-
Working With A Baby
Those with a baby should actually be clever enough to make use of their nap timings and schedule the work hours accordingly.
You can in advance inform your boss about the same so that any conference calls or certain tasks that require you to be attentive are done during those hours.
-
Working With Older Children
If your child is older enough to take on extra responsibilities, it would be even better.
You can take the child’s help in taking care of the younger one while you are working.
-
Also, Pay Attention To The Child’s Emotional Needs
Children during this time need extra love, attention, and affection. They often end up showing tantrums that leaves everyone feeling exhausted and frustrated.
It gets important to pay attention to their emotional need. You can even play calm music at home that can stimulate the feeling of relaxation.
-
Stay In Contact
If you are completely out of sight, you would also get out of the mind. To keep this from happening it is important to be in regular contact with the colleagues.
Communicating through video conferencing can be the best option at this time.
Over-communication is always better than under communication or no communication.
A sudden lockdown is not what you had planned, but you can make the most out of it. It would take a little time but if followed well, you can make yourself get used to the new normal, your new work life.
Also Read:
