A Practical Guide to Self-Care When You Work From Home
I took a long, hard look at myself in the mirror while I washed my hands. My hair was a mess, tossed up in a ponytail. My shirt was disheveled from wearing it while I slept, and here I was six hours into my day, still in my pajamas. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten a vegetable, and I was working such long hours that I was dreaming about missed deadlines and angry clients instead of Jason Momoa.
How did I get to this point? I questioned myself. I work from home as a freelance content writer; I have full access to a closet of clean clothes, a brush, and a fridge stocked with fresh fruit and veggies. There’s no tangible reason that I should have such a difficult time caring for myself.
But the harsh reality is that we freelancers and remote workers often overschedule time spent on our project work and under schedule time for ourselves. If you’re in this unfortunate boat, welcome! You’re just in time to join us as we take a look at the ins and outs of self-care when working from home.
What’s so hard about self-care for remote workers?
When working remotely, especially from home, it’s easy to blur the lines between personal and professional time. Therefore, we have a tendency to forget to take care of ourselves between taking care of our work obligations, running errands, and just living life in general. It’s easy to let adequate self-care slip between the cracks, and, just like anything else, it’s hard to get back on track with it once you’re off the self-care wagon.
What qualifies as self-care?
Self-care is defined as “the practice of taking action to preserve or improve one’s own health”. Pretty nebulous, eh? That’s because there’s a lot of wiggle room when it comes to defining self-care, which means that the act of caring for oneself could involve any multitude of things, from taking medication to showering to the more luxuriant indulgences like spending an afternoon at the spa. For me, self-care involves violent video games. For you, it might involve time spent quietly reflecting on your personal journey. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to the self-care question.
Self-care for remote workers: The basics
There are a few basic self-care requirements that are clear across the board, whether or not you’re a remote worker: Get showered and dressed, eat right and move, and take your medications.
Get dressed
Take a shower, brush your teeth, and put on clothes. It’s a simple ritual that we take for granted when we work from home, when your day could easily involve rolling out of bed five minutes before you intend to start work and working without brushing your hair or washing your face.
I’ve done both — I’ve worked from home in a sweatshirt and lounge pants (my current attire as I write this blog post), and I’ve dressed in business casual to sit at my desk in my home office. What you define as work clothes is up to you, but trust me in that you’ll feel much with a decent pair of jeans on and a nice shirt than you will wearing athleisure wear day-in and day-out. You don’t have to go all out and dress like you’re heading to the office, but you should but some consideration into your clothing.
Fuel up and get moving
This one’s pretty straightforward. Eat a balanced diet and exercise appropriately, and you’ll see returns on your self-care investment pretty much straight away. No, you won’t lose those last 10 pounds (at least right off the bat), but you will start to feel better and a lot more human if you’ve been relying on take-out to sustain you while you sit in an office chair for eight or more hours a day. Take a 15-minute walk and eat some celery or carrots with your lunch. It’s that simple.
Take your meds
Whether it’s a multivitamin or a prescription medication, take your meds regularly to holistically care for yourself. I have to take several prescriptions on a daily basis, and while I wasn’t always the happiest about it (or the most compliant patient), I now religiously take my medicine at the allotted times. You’re worth the time it takes to open the bottle and swallow the pill, so do it.
Self-care for remote workers: The specifics
Now that we have the basics out of the way, it’s time to get into the specifics of self-care for remote workers and freelancers. While remote work is up-and-coming, it’s still a non-traditional form of employment, and the line between personal and professional time is particularly fine when you work from home. To keep yourself safe in bounds, make time to create things, schedule time for yourself (even a whole day), set boundaries, and read for pleasure.
Set boundaries between your work and personal time
Yes, you should always practice setting boundaries with your boss or clients when it comes to when you’re available, how quickly you’ll respond to emails and Slack messages, and the like. But you should also set boundaries with yourself to make sure that you’re not letting your work hours bleed into your downtime.
Downtime is an absolute necessity, and working without it is a sure-fire recipe for burnout. So to protect it, ritualize the start and end of your workday. It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate, like lighting a candle while reciting a blessing (although if that’s what you’re into, knock your socks off). It could simply be turning your computer on to signal the start of your day, and shutting it down to indicate that the day’s done. For me, I sit down with a cup of coffee and review the previous day’s to-do list, transferring over any tasks that didn’t get done to today’s list. Then and only then do I dive into work. At the end of the workday, I shut my computer down deliberately (instead of letting it fall asleep) and take a few deep breaths to center myself before getting on with my day.
Make time to create
This is absolutely imperative, especially for those working in a creative field such as design or writing. Now I know you’re scratching your head, saying “Elizabeth, I’m creative every time I work. How much more creative can I get?”, but bear with me. There’s a lot to be said for non-productive creativity, which, in a nutshell, is creation for creation’s sake. So pick up your cross-stitch or your guitar and start making art simply to enjoy the experience. You’ll likely find that your restored creativity bleeds into your work life, making you more productive and creative in the long run.
Read for pleasure
It’s easy to shake off reading for pleasure when you’re constantly reading for business. After all, who has time to read the latest novel when you’re constantly reading industry publications, articles on Medium, and books about your craft? Still, it’s important to make time to read books you want to read, especially if you’re a writer — there’s tons of research to back up the claim that reading more makes your writing more effective.
On a recent trip to Target, I picked up a copy of Mac on a Hot Tin Roof, a book about a match-making cat. It’s totally outside of my normal reading material, which centers on biographies of the long-dead and guides to better writing, it’s saccharine enough to make your teeth ache just from looking at the cover, and it’s an engaging read that brought me back to reading for the sheer fun of it. So stroll through your bookstore or local library and let the covers speak to you until you find one that calls out. Don’t give it too much thought, and enjoy reading simply for the journey.
One important caveat — don’t force yourself to finish a book if it’s not a good fit. Save yourself the time and allow yourself to simply walk away from a book that you’re not enjoying. Giving myself permission to do this was difficult, but once I did, I found that reading became less of a chore and more of a pleasure.
Schedule time for yourself
Between client work, marketing my own business, writing for my blog, getting the kids to and from school, and spending time with my family, my days are often jam-packed. I’m not complaining; it’s simply a fact of life. But just as it’s easy to let work hours bleed into personal hours, it’s also easy to let taking time for yourself slip through the cracks.
To remedy this, whether it’s 15 minutes or an entire afternoon, schedule time for yourself in your preferred calendar and make it non-negotiable. For this to be effective, you have to take it as seriously as you take your deadlines for your boss or your clients. Don’t start skipping self-care appointments just to squeeze in other activities, or once again you’ll be on the direct path toward burning out.
One of the biggest hurdles for me is deciding what to do with my scheduled time. When people think of taking time for self-care, trips to the day spa, nail salon, or hairstylist immediately jump to mind. But that’s not feasible for everyone or representative of how all of us would pamper ourselves, so adjust your self-care time away from the stereotypical and tailor it to reflect who you are. For me, this means curling up on the sofa with a warm blanket, a mug of green tea, and a Playstation 4 controller and playing video games. For others, this idea might be repugnant. You might prefer going for a long walk around your neighborhood, maxing out your reps on a machine at the gym, or indulging in some mindless reality TV. Do whatever you can fit into the time you’ve allotted for yourself without guilt or thinking of your to-do list, and then return to your computer refreshed and ready to work once your scheduled break is over.
Take a mental health day
The idea of walking away from work for a day to focus on self-care might seem scary, especially if deadlines are looming. For freelancers whose time spent working is directly tied to income, it’s exceptionally hard to justify taking a day off. But invest time in yourself and you’ll start to see returns right away. So set an out-of-office auto-responder on your email and log out of your accounts on your phone, and take a day to yourself.
Take a day trip, soak for hours in your tub, or stare at the ceiling while the clock runs down, but whatever you do, do it mindfully, staying aware in the present moment. Practice mindfulness meditation to center yourself on the here and now, or simply take deep breaths while focusing solely on your inhalations and exhalations. Whatever you do, don’t let your mental health day pass by while you fixate on what’s happening at work or in your inbox.
Whether you relax by soaking up documentaries or by putting on a fresh coat of nail polish, what you do to unwind is as important as what you do during your workday. Prioritizing relaxation doesn’t come naturally to most of us, but when you do, you’ll see yourself in a different, more forgiving light.
What do you do to unwind as a remote worker or freelancer? How do you find the time (or make it) for yourself?
