6 Easy Hacks to Upgrade Your Work-Life Balance While Working From Home

The COVID-19 pandemic has upset our life inside and out, including forcing millions to work from home. For many of us, this is the first time we are working from home full time. And like many of you, we were excited to work in the comfort of our home. But once the initial excitement wore off, we realized it is daunting to make this thing work.

Yes, it’s true. One of the biggest perks of working from home is flexibility. But with freedom comes pressure. Before we were getting too comfortable on that trip from the kitchen to the living room, surfaced the drawbacks. Even though we all struggle to strike a work-life balance, it can be harder if you are working remotely.

Today, we have some tips and tricks up our sleeves to share with you to help you balance your work-life while you are working from home. So, follow along.

Set Specific Work Hours

Working non-conventional hours, you might feel the pressure to spend more time online than you normally would at the office. Without the coworker interactions, coffee-breaks, or team activities, remote workers might find it difficult to disengage from work and have less free time as they normally would.

You can kiss work-life balance goodbye if you find yourself working all hours of the day. More often than not, the organization you work for will set up specific work hours. If they don’t, set up your work hours, and let your team know, so that they don’t always expect you around the clock. Try to stick to a routine that allows you enough time in the morning to do exercise, eat breakfast, take a shower, and start the day on a positive note.

Establish a Home Workspace

No matter how tempted you are to work from your bed, this is exactly what you need to avoid! Set up a desk area where you are most likely to work all day and stock it up with everything you would back in the office. That includes notepads, sticky notes, pens, and most importantly, water bottles. If your hydration level is lower than optimal, you can experience loss of focus, irritability, and alter of moods. Well, if you find yourself getting annoyed by coworkers for no valid reasons, chances are you are just dehydrated.

Another drawback of not setting a proper workspace is back pain. Try to position your desk and chair so that your spine is aligned and your chin is straight ahead of the screen. Also, if you have children and pets at home, you need to make sure they are in a separate room to maximize your productivity.

Set Your Priorities and Stick to Them

If you work in a software company, you probably have a sprint goal to achieve. We all are guilty of procrastinating during the first week of the sprint and then working at the highest of our velocity in the second week to complete the backlog stories. If you are working from home, finishing your sprint early will allow you to recheck your codes, write test cases, and reduce your stress level. It also means you now have more time to spend with your family and find that perfect work-life balance.

Don’t worry if your company does not follow scrum. You can still write out your daily and weekly to-do list in a weekly planner and set priority to the tasks. You will feel better prepared knowing what’s coming down the road and having some sort of game plan handling it.

Take Proper Breaks

Chaining yourself to a desk or working 24*7 to impress your boss is not the recipe for success. In fact, it is the recipe for disaster. Sooner or later, you are most likely to experience job burnout if you do not take adequate breaks from work. And by breaks, we don’t mean mindlessly scrolling on social media breaks. We mean genuine breaks. Regular breaks. Away from your PC breaks!

Every few hours, step away from your working screen and go for a walk or take a reading break. These breaks will help you de-stress and re-charge for the rest of the workday. Reading can even relax our body by lowering our heart rate. For a quick 5 minute read, you can read our tip and inspirational blogs to distract you from your daily stressors and learn something new. You should plan out short breaks of 10 to 15 minutes and evenly distribute them throughout the work schedule to maintain your sanity.

Communication is the Key

Miss catching up with the coworkers over coffee breaks? We all do. But, you can always set up virtual coffee chats and reach out to people to alleviate work-from-home loneliness. Technology is making us get the same job done wherever we are in the world. Communication tools like Troop Messenger and Slack are loved by all and easily allows you to share files, ideas, comments, and make you feel connected with the coworkers.

Not only with the coworkers, if you feel Monday blues are hitting you harder during the lockdown, call up your friends and family. Communication is the key ingredient to a healthy workplace and a healthy life. Never hold back from expressing how you truly feel.

Don’t Give Up on Your Hobbies

No matter how caught up you are with work, you should always scoop out some time to invest in your hobbies. You surely have heard the phrase “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. A hobby energizes your soul, enhances your ability to relax, and increases your overall performance in every aspect of life.

Working from home is the perfect opportunity to invest time in your hobbies. You finally have the time to do all the things you always wanted to do. Take out those painting brushes, read the book that’s been gathering dust standing by to be perused by you, try out some new recipes, etc. Or, if you enjoy making Joomla websites, this is the perfect time to play around with our SP Page Builder, templates, and extensions to level up your development game. Enjoy your hobbies!

Summing Up

As an old saying goes, always look at the brighter side of life. This pandemic is a call for us to remain optimistic in light of difficulties. We hope the article helps you find the silver lining in this time of crisis and achieve the perfect balance between work and life. Let us know how you are adapting to the new normal and staying productive in the comment section.

Hopefully, soon we will be able to go out again, meet our friends, work in our office, and get back to our lives with a newfound appreciation for the things that made us feel alive. Till then, stay safe and stay strong.