This pandemic has forced many of us to ditch the office life and opt for dwelling in our apartment, condo, or home in order to work and practice social distancing. All the while working together to fight against the coronavirus and keeping business running smoothly.
That said, this transition may have caused a lot of disruptions for people for various reasons. Working from home may have been a foreign concept for people who have – up to this point – been working in an office for their entire working career so far. Since then, there have been ingrained habits that could take months to work out.
Not only that, but you may still have people thinking that working from home is luxurious and have been acting accordingly. These are challenges that they too need to overcome.
While this may be long overdue as most of us have settled into our new work-life, there may still be some lingering issues that need to be addressed. Below I’m covering some of those tiny issues. Not only that but these can also help you with transitioning back to the office life once you start getting back to work there.
Stressing Over Small Events
No doubt we are in stressful times right now. Beyond the typical household problems (i.e. dogs barking, kids screaming, general house issues), there is a pandemic going on amongst other world issues.
Dwelling on those things in our head isn’t going to do us much good. Not only that but dwelling on them on social media is even worse as it creates a rabbit hole of doom and gloom. All of these things put a strain on our own mentality and the last thing you want is to feel depressed or stressed out over these circumstances.
One recommendation to help with this is to be talking about these things and being open about it. This isn’t to say you need to be venting about this situations, but generally talking about these things in a neutral way can help you. Other people can contribute their own insights as well and that too can help you.
These are difficult times and we’re all human. As such, we’re trying to make the most of these circumstances. Be patient with everyone and everything that’s going on in your life. By talking about these issues and restraining yourself from blowing up or stressing over these events, you’ll have a better time of managing these issues.
Acting Like You’re At Home While Working
This goes without saying by this point, but there may still be some stragglers in this area. The most obvious aspect of this is not bothering to change out of your pyjamas or sweatpants while working from home.
There are other subtle behaviour such as taking calls from bed or the washroom, working from your bed or outside your workspace, amongst others.
All in all we are forced to mesh our work environment into our home environment and it can be a difficult thing to manage. Mixing environments doesn’t work well and you create these sorts of scenarios as I mentioned above. I can understand the difficulty of it.
But that’s all the more reason to try working on it now and catching even the smallest things and making fixes to it now. Strive to strike some kind of balance between the two. How you do that is pretty simple. Some ideas are:
Follow your “going to work routine” as you would normally.
Have a dedicated work space within your home.
Enforce certain rules to keep the environments separate. For example, leave all of your work in your workspace, or don’t tolerate family interruptions while working unless they are urgent.
Going Silent
Another aspect that people may not have considered is the act of going silent. These times are crazy for sure, but you want to be able to work on your habits of communication. Even if you weren’t the most social individual at the office, you don’t want to be bringing or enforcing those habits now that you’re at home.
Maintaining some level of communication is key and ensure that things run smoothly. Make an effort to provide routine updates and even check in on people. What’s also worth noting is that this pandemic has made us change quite a bit as there are many things that we’ve realized. This is an opportunity for us to strengthen relationships with others. This can lead to better relations for the company as well right now and once everyone starts going back to the office.
Working With Poor Posture
The last thing to avoid is something that I know people at desks had problems with even before this pandemic: poor posture. Even with our ergonomic chairs, people can still be slouched over and working away without even thinking about it.
I can imagine during the earlier months where people were working remotely, they may have been working in awkward dining room chairs, couches, or even their own bed. If you’ve managed to get past that great, however that problem may still be around.
To help with that, my suggestion is to do some exercises to help with poor posture or even invest in a posture corrector. Plenty of back exercises and routine stretches can help improve your posture on a regular basis too.
What’ll also help is invest in an ergonomic chair. Aim for some of the higher end chairs if you can afford to as they can last you for a long time while maintaining better comfort compared to cheaper brands.
Make The Most Of What You Got
A lot of things have changed and the changes will keep coming as time goes on. What’s important is that we keep a level head, keep hustling, and strive to make the most of this situation. It’s not easy, but even working on avoiding these things day after day will provide us with long term habits that we can use outside of these situations.