How Working Remotely Highlighted the Importance of Self-Care

When people asked me two years ago what I did and where I lived, the reactions I got usually fell into one of two categories: There were those who said “Working remotely, that’s the dream!” and there were those who said “So you don’t have a proper schedule or people around you? I couldn’t do that.”

Eleven months into 2020, you have probably gone back and forth between the two: one morning waking up to the BEST LIFE EVER, and the next, reminiscing about crowded subways on your way to work.

This rollercoaster of emotions and productivity levels can be tough, especially if you’re self-employed or just starting out in a new job. But as you experiment with your workday, you will begin to understand the hours you’re most productive at, how to prioritise tasks and, most importantly, how to structure your time, so that it doesn’t feel like you’re working 24/7. 

While productivity can be assessed rather objectively, mental wellness is a more fickle metric to pin down. Self-care is essential, but there’s nobody but you responsible or accountable for it. Forbes can tell you how to improve your productivity, technology tools can help you structure your time and track your progress, but only you can take the steps to ensure that your life is what you want it to be. And only you can know or feel when you have arrived at the right balance.

Companies are addressing employee wellness with all kinds of programs, but there is nothing like a personalised self-care ritual that is just right for you — it is called self-care after all.

Whether you are working from home right now, for the foreseeable or unforeseeable future, there are a few easy steps you can take today to establish a self-care ritual whilst working from home.

1. Do it every day 🎉

This seems like an easy one. So easy, in fact, many people forget about it. Before mindfulness came on stage, people largely saw self-care as treating yourself to a massage or a weekend getaway from time to time. Only recently, with the dawn of mindfulness practices, has it become widely acknowledged that, just like our bodies, our minds need healthy “food”, not occasionally, but every day.

With many of us quarantined at home, trying to find our bearing in a new normal, self-care is essential every day. Whether it is a daily workout, a morning meditation, a phone-less afternoon walk or reading time at night, choose an activity that allows you to properly recharge.

Schedule this time consciously; don’t just wait for a moment when you feel there is nothing to do. While engaging in the activity, remain aware of the fact that this is your time. Do this for a few weeks, and you will value your wellbeing in a whole new light. 

2. A lot of it is about devices 📱💻 

Working remotely, your life exists within a laptop: Colleagues and prospective clients can easily seem like little more than a name on a screen. It is understandable that, with the majority of our daily “human” interactions and commitments relying on your devices, putting away our phone can easily feel like shutting ourselves off from life, or missing out on an opportunity to do well at work.

There is always more that could be done: more to be learned and more people to be contacted. So to ensure long-term health and happiness, balancing time online with time away from devices and the activities they promote is essential.

A start is to only check your phone at certain times of the day. For a more general work-life balance, this could take the form of phone-free mornings and evenings. Alternatively, you could introduce “opening hours”: There is time for immersing yourself completely into your work, and then there is time to work together, when you are reachable and available to colleagues. Especially for creative professions, where long stretches of attention for creative thinking and exploration are needed, not checking your emails for a few hours can really transform your life.

3. Environment design is crucial 🙌

You’re not alone. Most of us would imagine that sending emails from bed is like winning the lottery, only to find that this novelty quickly wears off. Responding to emails whilst folding your laundry — what seemed like ingenious multitasking — quickly turns into a confusing blur of boundaries.

Since the dawn of nutritional science, diet gurus preached about the importance of our environment. From storing healthy snacks, to removing sugary drinks from the menu and not eating unless we’re sitting down at the table, we learnt that how we design our environment is the defining factor in how successful we will be. The same science applies for remote working. We need to create an environment around us that serves us. In the case of remote working, this means not blurring the boundaries between our personal and professional lives (i.e. working in the bedroom or places where you eat). If you do find yourself working at the kitchen table, you can allocate a section for work and a section for meals. If you eat at your desk, try closing your laptop, put away your phone and focus on the meal in front of you. It’s all about telling your mind: “It’s time to X now”.

Environment design is the holy grail to working remotely. Because our brain associates places with things, activities and emotions, allocating a specific part of the room for work will let your brain know it’s work time when you sit down. Getting up and shutting your laptop will mean the workday is over.

3. It’s individual 🌞

Lastly, and most importantly: Nothing works for everybody equally. Self-care is perhaps the most personal and intimate thing, so stay curious and open to new ideas. Try out new things and see how you can balance them with your own unique circumstances. You will arrive at a lifestyle that is just right for you.

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