5 Tips to Keep Work and Life Separate While Working From Home
June 22, 2020Work from home (often shortened to WFH) means a lot of things, but it doesn’t have to mean working all the time. It can be hard to balance work and home life, and very easy to fall into the habit of turning your kitchen table into the office and answering emails in bed every night. When your home also becomes your workspace, as it recently has for many Canadians working remotely, it can be difficult to keep things separate. We have five tips for working from home effectively so you can balance your home and career life.
1. Make a work from home schedule
When you’re at home, it’s easy to let tasks drag out. Sure, it might seem like a good idea to take a long lunch and work after dinner, but in the end, you are going to feel like you didn’t get a break at all. By keeping to a schedule, it will simulate the office environment. An easy way to make a work from the home schedule is to mimic your regular work schedule. That means once five o’clock hits you are done for the day and you won’t have to worry about making up for lost hours.
2. Set up a home office
Out of sight out of mind, right? Keeping work out of your sleeping or relaxing space is important. One of the keys to balancing home and career life when working from home is to set up a home office. You want to make sure that you carve out a specific space for work in your house. When you are in that space it is time to focus and work hard, but once you leave, work is over. OE Canada is helping workers all over Canada to create an effective working space with our work from home bundles. This will ensure that you compartmentalize work and don’t associate laying on the couch with having to write a report.
3. Don’t keep your work email on your phone
Often find yourself lying in bed at night reading emails? When you work on your phone it tends to bleed into other parts of your day. You don’t need to fill off-time with work. In order to keep work during work hours, don’t put anything job-related on your phone. This goes hand in hand with our other two tips for working from home effectively because keeping work both physically and mentally separate is an important aspect of creating a work life balance from home. Balancing home and career life may seem easy when you’re at work because you can walk away at the end of the day. When you’re working from home, having emails bombarding you will make it harder to get out of a work-day mental state. The last thing you want is to be enjoying your evenings and then be reminded of something stressful at work. If there is a work emergency a co-worker will call you. You don’t always need to be available at the touch of a button.
4. Call your co-workers
Nothing drags out a project like having to email back and forth. Since you don’t have to commute it is easy to let your workday longer by coming back to finish work later at night. If you are on a deadline and need an answer, you don’t want to be trying to relax at night while waiting for an email back. Sometimes it’s best just to hop on a call to speed up the problem-solving process. Again, when you don’t have to physically leave the office, lingering problems can keep you working longer than you would otherwise.
By calling, you will get your answer sooner and it will be less likely that you will have to spend time working during off-hours. Plus, it is important to stay social and keep in contact with your colleagues when you are working remotely.
5. Leave your home office during breaks
The day can be long if you just sit in one place for 8 hours. During your scheduled breaks, leave your office area. Go for a walk outside and get some fresh air or move around your home. Leaving your office space will help you better separate work time from free time. Plus, fresh air and exercise can help you be more productive when you get back to work.
These tips for working remotely will ensure that working from home doesn’t take over your home. OE Canada’s Home Office Bundles are the perfect solution for helping you set up a home office to maintain a healthy work-life balance from home or the office. With customizable mix and match bundles for your work from home technology, OE Canada has something for you at a cost-effective bundle price. For more information about how OE Canada can help you set up your home office, please call 519-649-5066 or email sales@oecanada.com. We’re always here to help you work happy, no matter where “work” is!