3 Common Pitfalls of Working From Home

The Common Pitfalls of Working From Home

1. There Are no Boundaries

When we start doing our work at home, it can become harder to see the boundaries between work and home. It’s all too easy to just check a few emails when you get up. Before you know it, it’s mid-morning and you haven’t had breakfast and you’re still in your PJs. Or even worse, you get to the evening and realise you’ve worked a 12 hour day without really moving!

Try: Set start and finish times for your work day, and stick by them. Plan activities immediately before and after your work hours so you have an excuse to not be online.

2. You’re Not Set up For Success

I have seen a huge increase in meetings since my office moved to virtual working, and I’m sometimes asked to attend 8-hours or more of meetings each day! This means I can struggle to find time to pee let alone to eat or move. That’s not healthy and it’s not sustainable.

Try: I’ve had to set up my work calendar to block my lunchbreak, and two 15-minute breaks so I’m not on calls all day. And I made a point now of not movig them for anyone! Be OK with saying “can we make that a 15 minute call instead of 30?” or “no, that will have to wait until tomorrow.”

3. You Forget to Move

Have you cut out nearly all incidental movement from your day? When we worked in offices, we used to walk to and from the car park or bus/train stop. We would pop downstairs for a coffee mid-morning and head out to the shops for lunch. Now that we’re working from home and self-isolating, we’re spending huge amounts of time sitting — which is as bad as smoking 15 cigarettes a day!

Try: Pick a few meetings throughout the day with close teammates or where you only have to listen (not write). Turn off your video and stand up for the entire call. If you can, stretch and march on the spot during that call.

Maintaining Your Balance

If you’re new to working from home it’s easy to fall into these 3 common pitfalls of working from home. But the key to maintaining your happiness and mental wellbeing is to find balance across three foundations: meaning and purpose; community and connection and healthy mind and body.

It’s a stressful and anxious enough time right now without introducing new bad habits into your weekly schedule, but unfortunately, recent changes in our working environments coupled with self-isolation have changed the balance many of us had established in our lives.

Here’s what you need to look out for:

Meaning and purpose: if you have your job, you will probably find that this foundation is still quite strong and no extra effort is required here.

Community and Connection: if you’re self-isolating, then you need to be mindful about reaching out to people and connecting. Try scheduling in video calls with a different friend or family member each weeknight.

Healthy Mind and Body: if you’re working from home all day every day and self-isolating, you need to be more mindful of getting enough exercise.

Luckily, it’s easy enough to set yourself up in a new routine and find balance. For some extra help with how to plan your day to avoid these common pitfalls of working from home, you set up your calendar like I do below.

Notice I schedule a lot of extra exercise and movement times into my day right now, and I’m prioritising calling my friends and family each evening while I’m on a walk.

I also am making sure I stand-up during work calls and march on the spot or stretch when I can.

NOTES:

Life happens, and I don’t always get to everything I mean to in a day. I have no time for guilt, so when that happens, I just try again the next day. Nobody is perfect, but setting the right intentions is half the battle!

To keep things interesting, I am searching YouTube for “HIIT workout at home” and “work-out for beginners” or “workout at home.” I then vary my lunchtime workouts between the high intensity interval training (HIIT) classes and something lighter like Pilates or a lower intensity workout, like this one.