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One of the major challenges us remote workers face and don’t anticipate enough of at the start of our working from home journey is just how stressful it is. In between balancing your work life balance, meeting deadlines and general procrastination it’s easy to see why 41% of remote employees feel stressed when working when compared to 25% of on site workers.
So what are some tips and hacks I used to counteract the feelings of stress when working from home? And which of these are the most effective? Keep reading to find out more.
Now it’s worth mentioning that this post has a lot of information and so if you’re curious about the best equipment needed to work remotely simply go to my resource page here.
Schedule your day
One of the biggest things you can do now to better help with feelings of stress is to schedule your day.
Taking the time to block out the tasks you need to accomplish and the amount of time it will take to do them, gives you the ability to focus on the tasks at hand
Word of advice though guys, please ensure you schedule our break and take the time you need on them.
So what is the best way to schedule your day?
The best way to schedule your day in my opinion has to be using a good old google calendar, aim to do this the night before your next day and even whack in things like breaks and even drinking water there.
Stick to your regular work hours
Sticking to your regular work hours is one of the most important things you can do when working from home to avoid stress. .
Remote workers have the tendency to work longer and harder then our office based counterparts, eating into our personal lives and ruining our focus.
If you are struggling to take breaks – feel free to check out this blog post I wrote talking all about taking breaks when you work from home.
Meditate and practice mindfulness
Too many of us get caught up in our day to day lives without taking a step back to focus on us.
Meditating and practicing mindfulness are two of the easiest ways you can destress yourself.
Consider joining a meditation class to help you to also get out of the house.
A quick thing you can do right now if you are feeling stress is to focus on your breathing. Take one breath in, hold for a few seconds and then breath out.
This will lower your heart rate and should help lower feelings of stress.
Avoid intoxicants
When working from home you’re surrounded by alcohol, cigarettes and other intoxicants.
It can be very easy to use those as a crutch when feeling stressed when working from home, but doing so can lead to a bad habit that will leave you worse off or even worse leave you with an addiction that you may not be able to control.
Keep this stuff out of your house and you will find more positive ways of dealing with your stress.
Keep an hour for surprises
Something always crops up when you’re working from home, whether this is work related or home related and so being prepared is the best thing you can do to avoid any future stress.
Schedule your day with at least one dead hour that you can use if any tasks crop up.
Consider aromatherapy
Did you know certain essential oils have properties that can help reduce stress. Lavender for example is a great choice to help you fall asleep.
Look into aromatherapy diffusers for your home office to help keep you focused and active as you work.
To help explain more I’ve written a post talking all about the best essential oil for your home office.
Soundproof your office
So anyone who lives with other people or has noisy neighbours knows just how stressful it can be trying to focus on the tasks you have in front of you
Soundproofing your rooms is a quick fix response that can easily help dampen some of the noise coming into your lovely home office.
There are a few ways to do this, firstly you could invest in soundproof tiles ( link takes you to Amazon) on the walls that sound seems to come through from – this is great if there are multiple people working in the same house as it will help for everyone to not get in the way of each other.
My ideal for soundproofing thought would be a nice pair of noise cancelling headphones, my choice would have to be the Sony WH1000xm3 which are the market leaders in terms of popular noise control, you can read up more about them here.
Meal prep your food
Not only do us remote workers have to worry about getting our work done but throw in cooking every day into the mix and it’s easy to see why so many people’s diets fail when working from home.
I just started dieting myself ( working from home has made me pack on the pounds a little) so I like to prep all my food on a Sunday night for the weekdays.
Invest in storage boxes to store your food to keep them fresh.
If you’re struggling to find the room in your fridge one work around would be investing in a mini fridge or mini freezer which costs a lot less then buying a full blown tank of a fridge.
Keep your pets and kids somewhere else
Did you know there are roughly 3 million remote workers who have pets?
Managing childrens and pets can be difficult enough but add working from home into the mix and it can be damn near impossible.
One of the best ways then to avoid the distractions that kids and pets bring is by keeping them outside of your office.
I’ve written an entire blog post talking all about how to stay focused when working from home with pets but keeping them in a different room is a sure fire way to keep them focused.
Kids will be a little bit more trickier, especially if they are not at school or you have younger children so look into babysitters or even better soft play centres that you can drop your kid off to whilst your work patiently in the corner.
If you can try to drop them off to a babysitter or guardian for a few hours for your important tasks, and then focus on your busy work like admin whilst they are present so you still get facetime in with them.
Do your chores later
One of the major benefits remote working has is the ability to do your chores during the work day when you have completed your tasks.
Similar then to cooking your food in batches, aim to schedule time every day to complete your chores. By not writing things down or having tasks in hand will make your mind wander as it keeps letting you know you have stuff to do , causing you to feel stressed out.
Personally I like to schedule my chores every day, ensuring I do different tasks to keep things fresh.
Write things down
This one took me a while to figure out.
Ever have tons of great ideas first thing in the morning or when you get into the shower? Same here!
By writing down your ideas, your brain will no longer feel the need to hold onto them, allowing you to come back to them later, alleviating the anxiety or stress they might bring you to remember them.
Figure out how to automate
Automation looks set to lose upwards of 20 million by 2030
There is a reason why companies like Amazon and facebook use automation, it helps set them focus on the most important tasks at hand.
You can learn from these companies by focusing your work into smaller, more manageable sections.
For example if you come to work with a task list of 50 items you need to get done, break these down into more manageable projects.
I personally like to use the following work system to help do this
|
NOW All the tasks which are critical to getting completed go into the now category |
LATER
Any tasks which fall into the later category are the ones which don’t take too much of your time and you won’t get in trouble for if you leave for a few hours |
| DELEGATE
If you are a manager, tasks you delegate are tasks that do not require your direct attention in order to be completed |
NEVER Some tasks will not require you to respond back ever such as responding back to spam emails. They can fall into the Never pile. |
Get facetime in with your colleagues
Part of the reason you might be feeling so stressed is just a lack of human interaction or facetime.
Human beings are social creatures, and it’s no exaggeration to say that working from home can be incredibly isolating.
A quick way to get around this especially if you find yourself in lockdown is to just just use facetime or video calls to get time in with your colleagues.
You can catch up about work or even get to know them better by doing things like weekly quizzes.
This should not only give you a break away from your work but you should come back feeling refreshed than before, allowing you to crack on with the day.
Connect with friends and family
One of the easiest ways I de-stress myself when working from home is simply by connecting with friends and family.
Having people trust you can just vent to work wonders on clearing your mind. Often once you’ve got everything off your chest you’re in a much better place to address the challenges you’re facing.
Who knows, your friends and family might even offer you a few pearls of wisdom you can use to address said problems.
Invest in noise cancelling headphones
Excess noise can be difficult when working from home, so investing in a nice pair of soundproofing earphones can go a long way to help keep you focused throughout your day and avoid any feeling of stress associated with not being able to hear correctly.
One of the biggest benefits of noise cancelling headphones I feel is the full immersion and sound quality often being far superior to those of traditional in-ear headphones.
My recommendation ( which you can find on my recommended gear page here) would have to be Sony which offers market leading soundproofing and sound quality at an affordable price.
Use the pomodoro technique
Taking breaks is one of the easiest ways to keep stress down to a minimum and my favorite way of scheduling breaks is through the pomodoro technique and away from distractions when working from home.
This consist of doing the following:
- Work for 25 minutes
- Take a 5 minute break
- Work for 25 minutes
- Take a 5 minute break
- Work for 25 minutes
- Take a 30 minute break
- Recycle until your work day is completed.
It’s been scientifically proven that taking shorter, fewer breaks is more effective than taking longer breaks or definitely give it a try.
For more help on the pomodoro technique check out the video below or read up my blog posts on taking breaks when working from home here.
Have a dedicated place to work from
The elephant in the room.
If you find yourself working from sofa to sofa or even worse… from bed, you might find yourself getting distracted and feeling stressed more than most, instead invest in a room in your house or a corner in your apartment to have a dedicated office space setup.
Home offices can massively help with productivity and help counter stress as they allow you to have your own designated space to work from, giving you peace of mind that you will get your tasks accomplished.
Unsure what products to use? Check out my recommended gear page for a full list of items but I feel as though every office needs the following:
- Standing desk ( why not get some exercise in when you work from home)
- Chair
- Lighting
- Laptop
- Plants
- monitors
Listen to binaural music
It’s no secret that music can affect mood, go to a nightclub on any weekend and you will notice that as soon as the music stops, everyone stops dancing and the same goes for feeling stressed.
Binaural beats help synchronize brain activity helping you keep focused for longer periods of time then you would listening to normal music, helping alleviate feelings of stress.
For me, I like to open a YouTube tab while I’m working and listen to the following:
Word to the wise however, It might be worth avoiding any music that would traditionally increase your heart rate like heavy metal or rap as this will have the opposite effect of de-stressing you.
Set a clear boundary between work and home
This is a massive problem remote workers face.
Remote workers tend to work longer hours than their office based counterparts, blurring the line between the work day and their personal time.
This can lead you to feelings of resentment towards your job, sapping your concentration and keeping you distracted throughout the day.
Instead set up a dedicated space to work and ensure you finish work when you work day would normally finish.
A great bit of advice I always learned was the work will always be there, but you will not, so be sure to just do what you can in the time you’ve got and then move on and enjoy your evening.
Give yourself time to relax
Taking quality time away from work or even a short vacation is such an important thing not enough of us do.
Too many of us remote workers are nervous about putting time in our calendars to just do nothing and just switch off, like going for a message or just staying in bed for longer than you might originally.
This is mainly because we feel as though because we have the option to work from home, we wouldn’t want this taken away from us.
By scheduling this in as much as you would any work tasks gives you something to look forward to helping you to avoid any distractions.
Get out and exercise for 30 minutes
The human body needs at least 30 minutes of exercise everyday to stay healthy and yet most remote workers struggle to get even an hour’s worth of exercise per week.
Working out or going out for a run for 30 minutes everyday will not only keep you active which has a host of benefits, but also allow you to get some fresh air, ensuring you come back feeling more refreshed and focused then you were when you left.
Mixing up both aerobic and anaerobic exercise at different intensities will give you the biggest benefit.
Keep a journal
So when I first came across the idea of journaling It was something I felt was a little bit new-age, I mean writing down how my day went and talking about my feelings was something quite foreign to me.
That being said, starting putting this into action was quite a bit different.
If you have a problem, how do you know if it is persistent without checking in regularly on it?
Journaling allows you to keep a daily log of the days you felt more distracted and can help notice patterns, for example if you always feel more distracted on a Monday it could be because you’re not sleeping well on a Sunday night.
Tracking patterns and journaling can allow you to take a step back and focus on some of your pain points.
Make a note of what stresses you out
Too many of us are stressed out without a clear understanding of what it is that is causing us excess stress when working from home.
A good way to do this ( if you can’t afford a good therapist) is to make a list of everything that stresses you out about your job and then do the same for everything that stresses you about working from home.
You’ll be able to pinpoint a few key areas you want to work on and this will give you the foundation to change your behavior going forward.
Do the tasks you hate first
One of the biggest things that stresses me out when working from home is looking towards the workload I’ve got on and knowing that I have a large task to complete.
This is the same for a lot of professionals and can lead to us pushing our tasks back and doing the easiest tasks first.
The best thing remote workers can do is to tackle the tasks they don’t want to do first which will give them a sense of completion and reduce their stress associated with said task.
A great book I read that helped me do this Eat That Frog by Brian Tracey which you can find out more about here.
Do one task at a time
I don’t know about you, but multitasking and having 17 tabs open at the same time just makes me feel more overwhelmed than productive.
I know it might not seem like you’re getting a lot done, but believe it or not, doing too much work at the same time can also distract you leaving you with feelings of stress.
Instead, try to break your day up into tasks as opposed to doing multiple tasks at the same time and you’ll find yourself getting distracted less.
Watch you diet
Did you know the food you eat can have a direct impact on how you feel and your mood? If you are feeling stressed out, if you eat junk food you will likely feel pretty rubbish.
Aim to eat a healthy balanced diet consisting of protein, carbs and fats with plenty of veggies for your micronutrients.
Get dressed
Studies have shown that people who dress professionally or dress for their jobs, live up to the qualities of their roles.
For too many of us remote workers, wearing our pyjamas day in and day out can have a pretty big subconscious impact on us, making us feel stressed so it’s super important to dress professionally or at least wear what you would for work normally when working from home.
This will give you a sense of purpose and help set up clear boundaries between work and home.
To find out more about this I’ve written a post which you can read more about here.
Leave your house
A major reason so many remote workers feel stressed is just not getting out enough.
A bit of fresh air will work wonders on both your physical and mental health.
By staying in day after day staring at small walls will really make you feel like you are in a prison more than a home and can lead to significant periods of stress.
I mean just think about it, when working in an office you are out every day and so you need to be conscious of getting out and getting some fresh air in.
Get plenty of light in your room
Night owls, this one’s for you!
One of the best things you can do when working from home is to air out your rooms and try to get plenty of light in them.
Light causes the human body to want to stay awake and so aim to work from a room that either has a large window where you can get natural sunlight from.
Consider investing in LED light or lamps to really add brightness to your room and it should help you get on with your day.
Change the color of your office
Did you know the color of your room can impact things like productivity, stress and focus.
Aim to color your home office blue, orange, purple or green to get the best out of yourself and reduce feelings of stress.
Avoid colors like bright red which has been linked to people feeling more stressful when working from home.
I’ve written a blog post talking all about what beats color to paint your room in which you can find here.
Disable your social media
In modern times social media has become more a hindrance than a help. Aim to limit your social media usage which can give you comparison envy, waste your time and generally increase your stress levels.
If getting rid of your social media is out of the question as it is essential to your life, aim to use apps to app block to stop yourself having a look every few minutes.
Start a side hustle
Okay I know what you’re thinking, really? Won’t starting a side hustle adds to my stress levels.
The truth is a lot of us feel stressed when working from home because we don’t have a sense of direction or something to aim for.
A side hustle changes that can give you something to focus your energy on outside of work which should help with your stress when working from home.
Personally I’m a huge fan of blogging (you can probably tell reading this right!) and definitely recommend Project 24 by income school which talks you through the a-zs of making money online- it’s definitely my side hustle of choice
Be patient
Working from home, like anything is a process and so you should not beat yourself up if you are feeling stressed to start off with, give yourself the time to focus on yourself and adjust to the new normal and take things from there.
Aim to do 1 thing better everyday and sooner or later you may find your stress levels reducing as you adapt to this new way of work.
Get 8 hours sleep
Sleep is one of the most important things we can do for mental performance as it is linked to attention, cognition and mood.
The fact of the matter is that too few of us are getting enough quality sleep. Aim to sleep for 8 hours per day, avoiding tv, phones or other items an hour before sleep.
Consider investing in a smartwatch which can track your sleep patterns and work on improving this gradually over time.
when working from home and so not getting enough quality sleep will lead to feelings of frustration and distraction.
Speak to your boss
Finally, and this one might be a little controversial so bare with me, learn to speak up.
Although it might be embarrassing you need to learn to approach them when you are struggling and feeling over stressed when working from home.
It’s not their responsibility to check in with you and often you will need to be the one who makes the first step.
Luckily by following along with some of the steps highlighted here you should be setting yourself up for success.
Speak to professional
I am not a professional psychologist however if you are having severe feelings of stress and you fear that it could be leading you down a path of poor mental health, consider speaking to a doctor or psychologist.
They will be better placed to understand what it is that is causing you to feel stressed out when working from home and give you solid recommendations.
What’s the correlations between stress and people who work remotely
So we’ve covered quite a bit in this post today, so I wanted to pull together a graph from Buffer showing the correlation between the number of people who work remotely as well as the number of people who see themselves as lonely and stressed out. As you can see it’s quite high.
The good news however is that this means you are not alone, and by following some of the steps we laid out earlier, we can get you in a better place.
Are remote workers more stressed than office based counterparts?
Around 45% of remote workers are stressed when working from home when compared to around 25% of office based workers. Lack of balance and loneliness are the two largest reasons for feeling stressed.
What are the problems when it comes to stress when working from home?
Stress when working from home can lead to a number of health problems including:
- Depression – anxiety
- Cardiovascular issues
- High blood pressure
- Abnormal heart rhythms
- Breakdown in relationships
- Poorer productivity and performance
“Approximately 45% of remote workers struggle with loneliness and isolation when working from home. A number that is set to increase the longer the pandemic goes on“
What is stressful about working from home?
So reading through this post you might be thinking what’s so stressful about working from home, aren’t you in charge of your day. I mean can’t you just sneak off into your bed for a few hours if you’re feeling overwhelmed?
The truth is that whilst remote workers don’t feel stressed because of long commute times,disruptive colleagues or direct pressure from manager, working from home presents it’s own stressors including but nowt limited to:
No work life balance
One of the biggest stressors us remote workers have is feeling as though you are no longer in control of your work day. Remote and home workers work on average 16.9 days more per year there than their office based counterparts so whilst they are more productive, this is usually at the detriment to their personal lives.
It’s not uncommon for remote workers to work into the late hours, leaving them with feelings as though they don’t have time to relax.
What’s even worse is even on your work laptop or phone you are likely to find distractions with a quick look on your emails easily falling into a Youtube wormhole.
This can further lead to poor sleep and diet which can further add to loss of life balance.
Too many distractions
Sadly remote workers are surrounded by distractions, whether it’s your pantry calling for you or sitting in front of your tv for longer than you should, it’s very easy to get pulled apart in several ways when working from home.
If you have kids and pets this is even worse with the problem likely being exacerbated.
I’ve written a few blog posts specifically on how to avoid distraction and dealing with pets you can find below:
No clear boundaries
Similar to the points above, a lot of people who work from home have a hard time saying no to people that are close to them.
It’s quite difficult to tell kids that you need to work and be home. The illusion for a lot of people is that they can go about their day and interrupt you whenever you want.
The best solution to this is to just work your normal work hours required and do nothing more.
By having this clear divide or doing something as simple as when the door is closed can go a long way.
Sadly, it’s not just your friends and family you have to deal with when it comes to not setting clear boundaries.
Despite the evidence, a lot of remote workers feel the need to overcompensate the fact that they get to work from home, and so often find themselves working longer.
A good way to get around this would just be to tell your boss the tasks you aim to complete by the end of the week and take things from there.
Feeling of isolation
Remote working can be a very lonely place, especially if you live by yourself.
Even for those of you who don’t have the easiest colleagues to work with you’ll find a few weeks working outside the office you’ll soon come to appreciate the bad jokes that make it around the office.
Isolation and loneliness are both real problems and so ensuring you get sometime in with people when you work will be vital to your mental health.
Consider reaching out to a friend to work from home with or even opt for a day in a shared workspace where you can get some facetime in.
To read up more about how to deal with isolation when you work from home, check out my post here.
Lack of focus
In the first few weeks of remote workers most people feel stressed due to lack of focus as they have not built up the habit of how to work by themselves before.
This can potentially lead to momentary drop in productivity and can further exacerbate feelings of stress. The best way to overcome this is by simply building the habit of work.
I personally like to use the pomodoro technique as a way of setting up my day around tasks which helps me focus for longer but for most people I would recommend they start by reading Atomic Habits which shows anyone how they can build habits with a little bit of structure to their day.
Work from home can be stressful
So hopefully this blog post has given you an idea of why working from home can be stressful and what exactly you can do to help overcome this.
Finally a lot of people reading my blog want to know what products I recommend for a home office/remote working. You can find out my recommendations here and learn how I make money whilst working remotely on the side here.
The content on this on this site has been written by Fehed Nicass who has over a decades worth of experience in sales and has worked remotely for the past 2 years.