8 Tips to Improve Your Work-Life Balance While Working from Home
How to achieve work-life balance while working from home
Working from home offers a lot of flexibility in many aspects. It gives you the freedom to work without any geographical restrictions, the ability to be physically present with your family members for a longer duration, and saves commute time. It seems to offer more scope for achieving work-life balance, but in the long run, it has many challenges which may adversely affect the work-life balance.
It is highly probable that while working from home, your personal life might get mixed up with your professional life. Some of the common factors responsible for this are working at odd hours, working while eating, working while watching Tv (Maybe on mute), not working from a separate workspace/room, and even working while talking half-heartedly to someone. This may cause several issues related to mental health and productivity.
Let us look at a few points that will help you to achieve a work-life balance while working from home.
1. Work from a Separate Room/Workspace
Working from a living room at home may cause disturbance to the other family members who might be willing to enjoy their time by listening to loud music, watching Tv, or partying in that room. Due to your work, they may not be able to enjoy their personal life at that time. Moreover, you may also be frequently interrupted and may lose your focus. Hence, whenever possible, try to work from a separate room dedicated to your work.
2. Follow a Routine
While working from home, you may be tempted to disturb your biological clock by binge-watching Netflix till late at night, and sleeping a few extra hours in the morning. You may procrastinate your work whose deadline is not close enough and would later be forced to work for extra hours when the deadline approaches nearer. If you follow a routine, you will remain more focused and will do things more proportionately, which will help you in achieving a proper work-life balance.
3. Sleep Enough
Having a good quality sleep is one of the most crucial factors to living a healthy and happy life. You will feel rejuvenated and motivated after having a good quality sleep. Compromising sleep due to the extra late-night work will disturb your work-life balance and reduce your productivity in the long run. Keeping your smartphone on silent mode (It would even be better if you may switch it off) before going to bed will keep you away from the various distractions like the following: checking a new notification/new message on social media, checking emails, checking official work-related groups on social media, etc. It will help you to sleep quickly after going to bed.
4. Draw a Strict Line between Work and Personal Life
This is true for both working from home and working from the office, but it is more difficult to follow while working from home. It is very tempting to sit in the living room and decide to work while eating or watching Tv. It may seem normal to talk about your work with your family member(s) all the time. As your home becomes your workplace, it becomes natural to discuss work at home. It may lead to work-life imbalance. Once you leave the dedicated room/workspace inside your home and enter the living area, you should leave your work and spend quality time with your family.
5. Exercise Regularly
While working from the office, in almost all types of jobs at least some basic physical movement is involved by default. For instance, if you are a professor, you need to go to the lecture hall, laboratory, auditorium, library, etc. which involves basic walking. If you work as a software engineer (Or any other professional in the service industry), then you might be going to the meeting rooms, taking coffee breaks with your colleagues, moving around the company premises, etc. Almost every job involves some physical activity. While working from home, even basic physical movement is not compulsory. Hence it becomes even more important to exercise regularly. Select a suitable form of exercise as per your physical stamina and underlying health conditions. Walking is one of the simplest and safe forms of activity for almost all age groups. It is good if you can go to the gym daily or go jogging, but if you are not able to do these heavy activities, make a habit of walking regularly.
6. Drink water at regular intervals
This may seem to be trivial and irrelevant, but seriously it is not. Drinking less water is the root cause of several diseases and health conditions like constipation, kidney stones, other stomach-related issues, and many more. Drinking plenty of water is one of the simplest yet one of the most ignored things that we do. While working from the office, you may be taking frequent breaks along with your colleagues and drinking water more frequently. While working from home, you may ignore this more often. Maybe you will see an empty glass of water and decide not to go ahead with filling it for the next hour, then maybe one more hour. It is necessary to keep reminding yourself to drink water regularly and stay hydrated.
7. Learn to say No
While working from home, your boss (If S/he is not a good leader) may not be able to assess how overloaded you are. S/he may assign even more work to you (Which would be pragmatically impossible for you to do). In such a case, instead of being a ‘yes man’ and later on failing to do so within the given deadline (even after being so harsh on yourself), try to politely articulate reasons why it would not be possible for you to do. Always try to suggest the alternative for getting the work done (of course keeping in mind that your boss should not be offended by that) instead of blatantly denying to do so. This approach may temporarily displease your boss or some of your colleagues, but in the long run, this will save you from burnout and them being even more seriously disappointed with you. It is important to keep in mind that you don’t say ‘No’ frequently as that may be counter-productive. Whenever you genuinely feel like you are overloaded and the new assignment is practically impossible to be finished within the given time deadline, then you should deny it at the beginning itself rather than accepting it and disappointing everyone in the future.
8. Meditate
Meditation is one of the best ways to reduce stress and negative emotions. Once you develop a habit of meditating, you will start feeling more aware and motivated. You will be able to focus on your work and possibly finish it in less time. You will be a bit more patient than before, which will help you in achieving a proper work-life balance.
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