How can you stay healthy and fit, both mentally and physically, while working at home? Working at Home might be new to you. Here are some little tricks you may not know about that can make working at home a bit more manageable.
1) It’s not about hours spent – it’s more about efficiency
Consider changing your workday goals: Long days at your desk, with little social interaction or ability to “get out” can be grueling. You may discover you can get more done, and actually shorten your workdays, by changing the way you plan. Instead of working in the mindset of, “I will spend 8 hours today at my desk”, try changing that up to: “These are the number of critical tasks I will complete today”.
Examples:
- If your job requires you to contact customers every day, your goal could be a certain number of calls, not 8 hours at your desk.
- If you are a blog writer, perhaps it’s a certain number of blogs that day. Or schedule what “stage” of writing you will complete every day. Monday could be your personal brainstorming day, when you build the framework for the week (that could be topics, ideas, links, jotting down research) for 10 future blogs. Tuesday, complete 1,2, or 3 of those blogs, etc.
- If you are a recruiter or in sales, one day might be “I will research until I have 50 prospects. Tomorrow I will call 20 by lunch time.”
It can be much more gratifying to score yourself at the end of the day for accomplishing your goals, instead of wondering what you did accomplish for those same 6 or 8 hours! Break up your goal into segments during the day. Reward yourself when you have accomplished goals – take a break, a walk – have a snack!
2) Speaking of meals...
Working at home can be sedentary and add unwanted pounds. You might want to plan ahead and have tasty, low calorie meals and snacks. When you make dinner, make an extra-large salad and use the leftovers for lunch the next day.
Always include protein, to keep your mental energy up. Go easy on the caffeine, because you can build up a tolerance for it and require more and more caffeine to get a “boost”. I personally never do caffeine, except for an occasional short cup, mid-afternoon when I get sleepy. Even then, it’s a choice between a ½ decaf or a 20 minute nap! My favorite low calorie, filling snack, is air popped corn.
3) Avoid ergonomic discomfort
One can suddenly realize they’ve been sitting in the same position, staring at a screen, for hours, and they are stiff. This can be hard on your neck, back, joints and overall health. Consider setting an alarm for breaks throughout the day.
Get up and walk around the house, or walk around the block, to refresh yourself. If you have exercise equipment at home, use it! I know some families who dance. No kidding. Dancing to upbeat music is fun. Give it a whirl! Consider a 30-minute yoga session or exercise session in front of your TV every day, as a mental and physical break.
Here are more ideas from Dr. Axe for remaining limber and pain free when working at your desk.
4) Increase efficiency by decreasing distractions
Other than some soft background music, keep distractions to a minimum.
Resist the temptation to watch a movie or have the TV on while you are working, unless it’s an exercise or meal break. Avoid checking texts and messages by turning off notifications that make your phone continually beep.
This Business News Daily article regarding productivity when working from home might surprise you.
5) Standing vs. sitting all day
There is a great deal of research supporting a standing desk is much better for one’s health than sitting all day.
Check out this White Paper on the subject.
Here are some options regarding standing desk options, as well as other items designed to keep a desk worker healthy and happy.
Interested in learning more about Cozy Roadie to help you with ergonomic discomfort during this work from home time? Check out our collection of home office chairs and we have these on a special discount right now as well.
