3 Tips To Refresh Your Work From Home

While it is imperative to stay grateful for the opportunity to work from home during these uncertain times, it’s important to acknowledge the difficulties involved in this type of work, too. If you’re finding it difficult to focus or if you’re feeling lost and unmotivated during your workday at the home office, it is time for a work-from-home refresh. 

It’s important to remember that your capacity for productivity and creativity is greatly affected by your environment – this includes your physical workspace, as well as your mental headspace as you prepare for your workday. Prioritize your wellbeing by taking a moment to restructure your work habits, and refreshing your daily routine.

Don’t forget – working can be fun. 

What is Fatigue?

Now, more than ever, it is so difficult for us to compartmentalize what happens in our lives; working from the comfort of our own homes means there is an ever-increasing overlap of our work and home lives. 

As the pandemic perseveres far longer than we’d initially anticipated, it is now necessary that we are extra mindful of taking care of our minds and bodies. Mental fatigue is a real issue that has the power of utterly plaguing productivity throughout the day. 

When you are experiencing fatigue from working from home, you can feel exhausted, have an inability to focus, feel unmotivated, feel distant and disconnected from your cohort, and feel overwhelmed by simple tasks. While the prospect of overcoming these challenges is daunting, you can work through them by making small, but important changes to your daily working routine. 

3 Ideas to Keep Your Team Engaged

When it comes to being responsible for the well-being of others in the workplace, it is so very important that you listen closely, and encourage your team to adopt healthy habits while they work at home. It may be a more attractive idea to have a team of “non-stop” workers, but we can assure you that this model of working is simply not sustainable in a long-term situation.

Be intentional, and wholeheartedly push your employees to take on the following three creative ideas, and you will not be sorry:

1. Stick to your Boundaries
   • Keeping tight boundaries as to what your work time is and what your home time looks like is necessary to staying happy at your home office. If you are having a difficult time with keeping your workday from bleeding into your evening with your family, then you need stronger boundaries in place – a hard stop at the end of your work day, so that you can actually enjoy your rest and resetting time.
2. Change up Your Workspace
   • Whether this means you need to move your home office to a new corner, a different nook, or a fresh room in your home entirely, it’s up to you. You can also change up your space by adding new decor, reorganizing your desk or adding new organizers, and introducing more light into your workspace. All of these options will help you to feel more energized and ready to work in your office space.
3. Add Some Greenery
   • Adding a desktop garden, larger container garden, or even a houseplant to your office space is a phenomenal way to brighten up the area and stimulate your mind. Keeping plants close to you while you work can also manage your stress levels, and keep you happier throughout the day. Take a look at this article by Camille Styles to learn more.

If you are interested in what you can do to learn more about relieving the stress of working from home, read through this article that was published by the University of Michigan. If you’re looking for more ideas in terms of keeping yourself and your team engaged, check out this article, “How to Refresh your Work From Home Routine for the Next Season”, by Fast Company. 

Get Started

As we always say, these changes cannot all be made overnight – if you choose even one thing that you want to adjust about your workday, and start with that, you will feel empowered to continue making sustainable progress as time passes. While you’re thinking about it, take some time to take care of your garden. You may even decide that you should make a permanent residence for your garden in your home office!