7 Ways to Stay Motivated and Sane While Working From Home

*THIS IS A GUEST POST. The opinions expressed are that of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect my own.

There’s a renewed buzz around remote working/working from home, and rightly so. The coronavirus pandemic has forced many into being remote workers – something they didn’t plan for. On the other hand, some kinds of jobs require working from home – with or without the virus. Many people already operated remotely, especially freelancers, and all remote workers can testify how isolating it can be. This is the major challenge of working from home. It’s a good concept, but it can also drive one insane. Once isolation sets in, depression comes in next, and before you know it, you’ve lost your motivation and are losing your mind too.

How then do you ensure that you retain your motivation, sanity, and productivity while working from home? Here are seven ways that you can do it:

Give yourself breaks

Even an office setting has designated break times, which include lunchtime. The reason for the breaks is so that workers can “cool off” a little before returning to work. This will ensure that they retain their productivity. However, remote workers often make the mistake of not taking any breaks or taking too few. It’s unconscious, but it’s real. Have you found yourself eating your snacks right at your work table and with your computer in front of you? That’s you missing out on a break time. Why work for 10 hours at a stretch and be productive for just 6, when you can work for 4 hours, rest for 2 hours, then work for another 4 hours? You’ll find that you’re saner and more productive with the break.

Have a work area in your home

One hack to being productive while working from home is to create a part of your home (maybe a whole room or part of your room) as your work area. Also, never go to your work area to play; make it strictly for work. So, whenever you go there, your brain knows you’re ready for work. This will help you be more productive. Working on your bed is a recipe for unproductiveness. It’s easier to lose your sanity when you’re unproductive and have a large workload.

Take some time off

It’s easy to get distracted these days with the flurry of online activities competing for your attention. If you’re not going to lose your mind working from home, you need to be less distracted. Do away from your mobile phone and all beeps and buzzes for a start. Take some time off till you’re done with work or when you take a break. The more connected you are, the more the distraction. More distraction leads to less productivity, and it’s easy to start feeling anxious about deadlines, depression, etc.

Take a stroll outside your house.

You could be indoors all day working, and before you know it, one day is becoming three days, a week, and more. This isn’t ideal for you and your health. You’ll have accumulated stress that you would have built up by doing all those works for days. You must let them out and cool off those negative energies. Take a stroll along your street, go for a jog or a nature walk. Do what you can to keep yourself sane. Don’t get stuck indoors.

Manage your workload

The easiest way to lose motivation is to fail to manage your workload. This will lead to incomplete projects, failure to meet up deadlines, accumulating tasks, etc. This becomes a burden that you’re unable to handle. You become demotivated, stressed out, depressed, alone, etc. You can avoid all of these by adequately managing your workload. This will ensure that you do the right things at the right time and lead to fewer problems.

Communicate with people

People would often leave you alone to work when they know you work from home. You’ll have fewer people checking on you because they don’t want to disturb your work. This is the source of isolation and loneliness. You can deal with this by reaching out to people you love and continually communicating with them. This will liven up your mood and encourage them to check on you regularly too.

Reward yourself

You work too hard not to be rewarded for it. However, the fact that you work in isolation means that there hardly will be anyone who sees your work not to talk of rewarding you. What your client and managers will notice is that you’re completing your projects in time. They won’t see the hard work that goes into making that happen, but you do. So reward yourself for your hard work. Take yourself on those fancy trips you always wanted to go for. Buy yourself a gift. Go for what makes you happy. You deserve it. You worked for it. This will keep you sane and motivated to continue to work more.

Conclusion

Working from home is as difficult as it simply sounds. If you aren’t strong enough, you could lose your mind. So, you must find ways to motivate yourself and remain sane to ensure continued productivity.

About the author:

Emma Coffinet is a content creator for websites, blogs, articles, white papers, Australian writings, and social media platforms. She is keen on capturing the attention of a target audience. Also, she keeps herself well-read with the changing trends of the web world. Emma loves to pen down her knowledge in an engaging and simplified way. She also enjoys leading, motivating, and being part of a productive team; equally comfortable working on her initiative.