The challenges of working from home are several, but the main thing is to define the boundaries between personal and professional life.
For this balance to exist in a healthy way, it is necessary to form some rules and apply them in our day-to-day lives.
Telecommuting has gained a lot of popularity in the last year and one of the challenges of working from home that is found among workers is to be able to separate their personal routines from their professional ones, so it is necessary to draw some limits between them in order to maintain a mentally healthy and balanced lifestyle.
Workspaces
First of all, it is necessary to define a place of work: it can be a specific room or even a desk in a common area of the house. The important thing is that this space is free of distractions. If you live in a house where there are more people on telecommuting, it is important to talk and define together the work area for each one and thus be able to respect that space without disturbing the other person.
Schedules
Another of the challenges of working from home is to define your working hours. The ideal would be to keep the same schedule as you had when you went to the office, however, in some cases it is possible to adapt the schedule to the household and daily tasks of each person. The most important thing is that you do not exceed your daily number of hours – except when it is really necessary.
If, when you went to the office you missed two hours in the morning rushing and commuting, take advantage of them now to do something that gives you pleasure or some household chore, but don’t use that time as work hours or you’ll be overwhelming yourself.
Breaks
And don’t forget to take breaks! No one can work eight hours straight without taking a break, whether they are lunch breaks or breaks between tasks. We are human beings, not machines and probably when you were at the office you had some dead times to catch up with your colleagues or to have a snack! Take advantage of those dead times at home too: go for a coffee or call a friend or colleague for a quick chat, this will refresh your mind and make you more ready for the next task!
Priorities
The feeling that it is necessary to prove that we are working and being productive is one of the challenges of working from home. For this, task overload is common, which often becomes counterproductive because we are unable to define and separate well what is urgent and important from what can wait.
It is important to remember that being telecommuting does not mean that we are working 24/7. Therefore, whenever you feel that you are overloaded with work, you should speak to your manager, so you both can distribute priorities or delegate some of your tasks to other colleagues.
Being overwhelmed can be harmful to your health – as it will force you to work overtime – and can also be negative for your work, which will not be so well done. Remember: quantity is not quality!
Defining your day and routine with some of these basic rules will surely help you to have a better balance between work-life and personal life and overcome the challenges of working from home!
It is important to set boundaries on ourselves so we can dedicate the best of ourselves to our professional functions while we are able to take quality time for our hobbies and/or for our family!
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