How to manage work from home and things you should do in lock down period

In the current lockdown situation due to Corona pandemic, Government is encouraging people to keep social distancing and because of this we are not allowed to move out and forced to work from home.

In some cases, there are number of employees who already have experience of working remotely. But for those who don’t have any experience to work from home, it can be a big change for them to adjust in this environment.

Most of us have not experienced such long lockdown situations, you will feel that your home has become a prison of sorts as efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus force, or at least encourage, us to “shelter in place” with minimum exposure to move out of your home.

Some of you who live alone, congratulations, you’ve only got one set of demons to deal with. For those who are married and having kids also obliged to work from home and kids whose schools are closed, let’s be honest, this is going to get fractious.

It is tough time and many of us have never been in such situation before, we should decide to limit our news readings to few selected sources and to speak about it only with some informed people. We need to self-isolate our self from this negative news for a mental stability.  

Here are some tips important tips you should follow when you are working from home.

Create a dedicated workspace

Turn a spare room into home office, you just need a desk, a chair, a power strip, a broadband/mobile internet connection. If you have kids, having a clearly defined space that they know is not to be touched or played in is going to save your sanity.

Ensure the space that you are operating from is good to make and receive calls (Phone call or Video calls) where other people’s noise can’t spill over.

Working from home habits

Working from home should be no different to going to work. For people who are not used to work from home for them it is very easy to treat work days like weekends.

• Wake up at your usual time do all the routine work which you were doing before going to office, take shower on time and put on your clothes for work just as you normally do it.
• Organize and prioritise your work before you start work – put all the non-essentials things during the break time or after office hours. Don’t allow them to eat up your productive hours.
• Have a discipline of closing the working day at the end of working hours, do not stretch, walk away from your laptop even if others don’t. Take care of yourself and disconnect.

Along with work focus on below things as lockdown has given us enough time to focus on things which we could never focus on because of the excuse “I don’t have time”.

Focus on both physical and mental health

Everyone has a plan to live more healthily and happier but only some people manage it. But now is the time to actually do it, get up in the morning and do some exercise. Give yourself at least 30 minutes. Do some stretching, home based workouts, Yoga or meditation whatever you like it. If you feel its boring to do it alone, do along with your family members or kids, you will love this. You can even join some online fitness sessions which are happening very frequently these days. This will help you to improve your physical as well as mental health.

Eat healthy, eat better and take a proper sleep

With many people it is a general tendency that when they are at home they tend to eat more. You need to ensure that you eat healthy food and you east wise and avoid over eating.

Have a proper sleep and at least take 8 hours sleep. You need it, especially if the stuck-at-home situation is stressing you out. Literally everything is going to be easier with more sleep. Try not to get into habit of watching late night television or web series, it is difficult to get out of this habit once you develop this.

Play with Kids

How do you deal with kids at home all day, especially if you need to work? This is a hard one but, the one way to manage this better is to create a schedule.

It doesn’t have to be a good schedule. It doesn’t have to be precise. You can plan morning workouts, plan some fun games where all the family members are engaged including kids. Plan a time where you can spend some quality time playing traditional games, give them a slot to watch some good online story content or some online kids movie. Ensure you utilise your lunch time and your dinner time talking to them and ask them to narrate some good stories which they have watched during the day.

Connect with friends & Relatives

In today’s demanding life we really do not get enough time to talk to our friends or relatives. Utilise this lockdown time to talk to your best friends and close relatives and cherish those old memories that you created together. I would suggest to call them or set up a video call then just chatting over what ‘up or any other messaging tool. Call up your parents if they are staying at different place. This will help you to get connected with outside world.

Spend quality time with your partner

Every good marriage or long-term relationship has a healthy dose of distance built in: and that is going to get much smaller if you are both in the same place all day.

In lockdown situation where your helping hands are also on vacation, try to set aside some time every day to do something you wouldn’t normally do like cleaning up, washing clothes or dishes, cooking etc. Just do additional somethings. When you’re in close quarters, the small things matter. Do things together which generally you are not able to do it because of time constraint. Try some new dishes in kitchen together.

Enhance your skills

Utilise this opportunity to upgrade your skills. Read books which you have bought but you could not read it because of your busy schedule. Attend webinars and online tutorials which will help you to learn something new and would help you to improve your work.