Office Space
I was meeting up this morning with one of my remote clients and a topic came up again about work life balance in the time of COVID and finding time for everything. Work from home has definitely made some things easier – who doesn’t miss their morning commute! But with that comes other challenges when it comes to health – not having the parking lot to walk through, not walking from the subway station to the office, the options to take the stairs, the need to walk at least to the conference room for meetings. We’re more in a Wall-E type world more than ever with everything having the ability to come to us when it comes to work and not needing to even get up. So it’s clutch that the home office situation be more conducive to healthy habits more than ever. Here are some things you can do to make that happen in WFH world.
Setting strict work hours – If you’re schedule has become more flexible in a WFH situation, it’s mad important to set a defined work schedule so that way you’re not working all hours of the day. With your laptop sitting right there, it’s easy to flip it open and tell yourself, “I’ll just follow up on a few emails.” Those few emails end up being a few hours of work. Be strict with your time! If you’re responding to emails every hour of the day and night, then you’re setting the expectation that you’re available every hour of the night and you’ll be expected to keep that pace. You know it’ll still be there anyway so set those limits and put work away and enjoy life.
Ergonomics – With all the extra walking to, from and around the office gone, like I said in the intro, we’re more like the humans in Wall-E than ever before. Throughout your day of sitting, you’re butt is getting weak, hips are getting tight, shoulders are concaving in – not a pretty look and I know you know that feeling of getting up after a long sit! Invest in a laptop stand so can elevate your machine and stand up while you bang away at emails. There are lots of great inexpensive options out there right now that work great and don’t take up a lot of space in your extra bedroom now converted office. Get yourself a yoga ball you can sit on when you do sit that’ll force you to engage your core muscles more than a regular chair. Ergonomic keyboards and ambidextrous mice all help your wrist, hands and fingers move more comfortably and will save you in the long run.
Zoom walks – Every desk jockey out there is in some sort of Zoom meeting at least a handful of times throughout the week. If you’re not in need of being on video it’s a great opportunity to get out for a walk around your neighborhood or a park and get some sunlight on you! If you’re gonna go for that walk, be mindful of traffic and safety. Try having only one headphone in your ear, and keep yourself aware of your surroundings. If a walk isn’t your bag because of time constraints, whatever, it’s a great time to do laps around your house and maybe straighten up a bit. Or even better, bust out your dusty yoga mat and foam roller and get some stretching in!
Lunch time! – working from home means no sneaking over to the vending machine because we don’t have vending machines at home! But almost as bad, we have our fridge. And while we may keep it stocked with some healthy options, there’s still a container of last night leftovers with your name on it. It might be a quality healthy meal, but if you’re like me, you’re apt to eat the whole container. Pro-tip: kit out last night’s leftovers into smaller, lunch sized containers so you can control the quantity of food you’re eating. Too much of anything is a bad thing, even for the most healthy meals.
Snack box – When I worked in an office I had an air tight container with some healthier, non-perishable snack options that kept me from roaming to the vending machine on most days. My office break room had frozen Snickers bars. I mean I couldn’t resist all the time! But on those days when Johnny was a good boy, I had beef jerky, non-granola trail mix, almonds and protein bars readily available for me to grab. You can still implement this in your WFH situation. Keep that box available in your pantry and make it your go to instead of hovering over to the Doritos. If those chips and ice cream have mind control over you like Smokey did over Deebo (RIP Tiny!) more days than not when you open the cupboards, then keep that snack box under your desk so you don’t gravitate towards them.
Alarm reminders – If you’re like my client, you get so busy in your day that you don’t remember basic things like needing water, a bathroom break, etc. If this is you, bust out your phone and set hourly alarms to remind you to get up and move for five or ten minutes. Go use the bathroom, drink some water, grab a quick snack and stretch it out a bit before you get back to the grind. Which leads to my next tip:
Space between meetings – I told my guy this bluntly this morning, if you’re not around, your clients will find someone else to help them out. That’s reality. Plenty of us are replaceable. It’s great that plenty more companies are saying that they’re down for a more balanced work to life schedule. But it’s meaningless if you’re not taking advantage of that. So take them to task and utilize that offer. Space out more time between your day. Fifteen to twenty minutes every 90 minutes makes a world of difference in your stress levels. Of course there’s time when you have to grind it out and meet deadlines, etc. but it’s not healthy for you and you’re less productive in the long run. You can’t serve others if you’re not serving yourself!
What started as a hastily put together situation is now looking to be the norm as companies finally figured out that we really can work from home. So congrats, we got our wish! But as they say, be careful what you wish for. It’s looking like long term, work from home is going to be the norm as companies such as REI and twitter approve WFH as a full time thing moving forward. It’s going to be super important to instill some new habits and bring home some good work habits in our home office situations. I hope all these tips can help you navigate your WHF situation. If you have some interesting work situation that I didn’t cover that you need help with, feel free to email me and holler!
