Many companies sustained the manner of work as work from home. The transition — and constant change — has not been easy. Workplace burnout isn’t a medical condition or disease, but it is widely recognized by psychologists and the medical community as a phenomenon that can very seriously affect our health and well-being. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines burnout as a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress. Here are some suggestions to overcome the burnout of working from home.
- Seek Help from others
Seeking help from others is not a matter of shame. It doesn’t mean you have to do it all (or have the time to), says the North Carolina–based productivity coach Tanya Dalton, author of The Joy of Missing Out: Live More by Doing Less. Taking on too much because you feel obligated is the path to burnout, whatever combination of work or household tasks is adding up to “too much,” she says. “Your time is finite. Stop trying to get more done in the same few hours.”
2. Stay Connected
Staying in connection with your kiths and kins by meetings is not so easy at working from home condition. Unlike an in-person meeting, when you can have moments of zoning out, most people feel the need to be very focused and present on a video call, and that means no micro-rest attention breaks. If you have tired of your professional video conferencing, you can try phone calls.
3. Work and Nonwork Boundaries
Setting boundaries can be challenging in working from home scenario; it can be helpful to get support from a trusted friend, therapist, or mentor. These things are even more important if you’re at home most or all of the time. “If you are going to work from home 100 percent of the time, you need to make sure you’re putting in the extra effort to get out of the house regularly, as that aids in your overall rest and rejuvenation,” says Dalton.
4. Try the 90/20 Rule
Add structure within the workday. You can work with the focus for 90 minutes, then take a 20-minute break.
The key to this method is to really stick to the task at hand for 90 minutes. And then take an honest-to-goodness no-social-media, no-email 20-minute break. Do a mindfulness meditation exercise, fix yourself a nourishing snack, or have a conversation with a roommate or family member.
The point is to feel refreshed when you come back for that next 90-minute session. It might take some time to find what rest and refresh means for you, but play around with it, Steginus suggests.
5. Take Time off
Take a whole week off where you can disconnect from work and reacquaint yourself with other interests and hobbies. Or try scheduling vacation days throughout the month instead of saving them up for a larger block of time.
However you use the time, use it wisely. No meetings, no answering emails, and no last-minute projects that cut into your time off. Following these rules helps establish the structure and better boundaries that our virtual office walls too often lack.