Work From Home practices

Work From Home Practices

Practices to prioritize wellbeing while working from home.

Here are a few rituals that our editors use to stay grounded and focused while working from home. Some help us to improve productivity, and some help us to remember that productivity isn’t everything.

1) Create Separation between Work and Home

If designated office space is hard to come by, use environmental cues to prime your brain to focus on different tasks.

Even if you don’t have to, change your clothes to match what you would normally wear at home vs. at the office.
If the kitchen table or bedroom has become your workspace, use specific objects to distinguish between tasks. When it’s time to work, put out a cup full of office supplies or other “office cues” to signal work time, and remove them at the end of the day.
Play ambient office noise or lofi music, which has been shown to increase focus.

2) Ritualize Beginnings & Endings

Designate a regular practice to signal to your brain that the workday is beginning or ending.

Take a physical walk outside along a specific route at the beginning and/or end of your day.
Begin long work blocks with a 5-10 minute meditation.
Set alarms to signal the beginning and end of your workday. Resist the temptation to work beyond this time frame.
Make a “done” list at the end of each day to celebrate accomplishments (however small).

“Every day, I get dressed, put on shoes, make coffee, pour it in a mug and tell my two housemates that I’m heading to work and will see ’em later. Then I walk in a few circles and settle in at a desk in the corner of our living room, just a couple feet away. This is my deranged coronavirus commute and it’s how I help my bleary mind realize that the workday has begun. ”

— Nellie Bowles

3) Create a Deep Work Checklist

Rather than expecting yourself to focus for 8 hours uninterrupted, set aside a few hours a day for “deep work”.

Create a “deep work time” checklist that is taped on the front of your planner, laptop, or desk space to reduce the need to get up again or respond to distractions.

Possible inclusions:

Use restroom
Fill water bottle/ coffee mug
Collect all necessary work materials
Set phone on airplane or do not disturb mode.
Put phone in “exile drawer” to reduce the temptation of beeps, buzzes, and impulsive scrolling.
Turn off distracting websites with the chrome extension stayfocsd
Play ambient noise or a non-lyrical focus playlist.
Set a pomodoro timer or use another task tracker like Clockify or Forest, which gamifies time spent not on your phone.

4) Use Chronobiology to Your advantage

You’ve probably heard the terms night owl and early bird, but few know that these ideas are grounded in the science of chronobiology.

For most people, energy, mood, and ability to focus peak in the morning, fall into a trough in the early to mid- afternoon, and recover again into the evening. The exact timing of these cycles depends on your personal circadian rhythm, which tends to change with age. For night owls and teenagers, typical cycles may be reversed or shifted later in the day.

If you have some flexibility over your work from home schedule, learn about your chronotype to work with your body’s natural rhythms rather than trying to grind against the grain. For example, if you’re naturally a night owl and have flexibility over your work hours, consider ending the fight against the alarm clock and sleeping until your body naturally wakes up, planning to spend more time working in the evening when focus comes more easily to you.

Plan tasks that require more cognitive effort (writing, strategic planning, problem solving) for times when you know you are better able to naturally concentrate, or when you can expect fewer distractions and interruptions. Save tasks that require less effort or manual labor (email, routine admin tasks, chores, meal prep, dog walking, etc.) for your trough points.

5) Practice Setting Availability Boundaries

To signal availability to younger children, set up a stoplight system with signs, flags, or colored objects. Green means available, yellow means just if it’s urgent, and red means emergencies only.
For children who can read, create a game plan poster for common needs.
- “I’m hungry” -> take a snack from the designated snack shelf in the fridge.
- “I don’t understand my schoolwork” -> instructions for checking school portals, phone numbers of classmates, etc.
- The computer or wifi isn’t working -> things to try before asking mom or dad.
For roommates and spouses, set up “working hours” that are posted and observed. You might also designate locations in the house to signal ‘open to chatting’ (the kitchen table) and ‘deep focus’ or meeting time (your desk). Headphones can also serve as an implicit or explicit ‘do not disturb’ signal (even if you are just playing ambient noise).
Block off time in your calendar for deep work so that co-workers won’t request meetings during this time.

6) Write or print a list of affirmations to keep at your workspace

These are extraordinary times and I am doing my best.
May I have grace for those around me, who are also doing their best.
May I celebrate what I have gotten done, not shame myself for what I haven’t.
“Productivity” also includes eating, cleaning, general life maintenance, taking care of others, and taking time for enjoyment and rest.
May I allow space for difficult feelings. They are normal reactions to extraordinary challenges.
This too shall pass.

7) Practice Non-judgmental Mindfulness

Now more than ever, gentleness with ourselves and others is important for wellbeing. Sitting meditation can provide great mental training to become more aware of our thoughts without being judgmental of them. It may help to remember that the point of meditation is not to completely empty our minds of thoughts, rather to observe what is happening in our minds without criticizing ourselves or being completely swept away by our monkey mind chatter.

Seated or intentional practice is brain training to build the skill of noticing such inner judgment and criticism throughout our daily lives and replacing it with gentle and loving kindness.

A guided meditation on non-judgment: https://www.mindful.org/a-mindfulness-practice-to-cultivate-nonjudgmental-awareness/

Notes from the science of wellbeing

The PERMA model of wellbeing includes an “A” for Accomplishment or Achievement. While some may complain that Western culture is overly focused on superficial metrics of success (the collection of accolades, resume gold stars, etc.) researchers have drawn a convincing link between accomplishment that is personally meaningful and wellbeing.

Accomplishment, from tasks as small as making the bed to as large as completing a challenging project, leads to increased confidence, self-esteem, and agency. What the self-esteem movement got wrong was thinking that the belief in one’s agency would always lead to accomplishment, when so often the opposite is true.

Accomplishment also has a snowball effect. Completing small tasks gives us the momentum and confidence to be able to tackle and stick with larger ones. In one study of journal entries from 238 people at seven companies, researchers found that a sense of forward momentum, no matter how small, contributes to well-being in our work lives.

An increased sense of accomplishment has also been linked to a lower incidence of depression. (Gander, F., Proyer, R. T., and Ruch, W (2016).