Working From Home Or Living At Work?
Working from home has always been very high on my list of dream job preferences, as I’m sure it has been for many of us. However, we were unfortunately forced into this model with an abrupt amount of chaos. Between the challenges of getting accustomed to the newness of being home 24/7 with unfamiliar distractions and the increase of traumatically painful police brutality events, the transition was anything but easy.
Working from home turned into living at work with limited space for unpacking the mental and emotional anguish being endured. Your home should be your sanctuary, certainly not a place that should hold the intense energy associated with work. Hopefully by now you have been able to find a routine that works for you but if not I think I have something that may help!
The Human Attention Span
First, I wanted to shed some light on the average human attention span. If you were to type this into your Google search, a bunch of articles would come up stating that the average attention span has decreased from 12 to 8 seconds between now and the year 2000. I found this both shocking and easy to grasp at first, but then came across a BBC article by Simon Biyan, “busting the myth”.
Through his conversations with various specialists who dedicate their work to the study of human attention, he gathered the basis of attention span to be much more task driven. When we are involved or invested in a task we are likely to have a longer attention span for that specific task, which I’m sure we can all attest to.
This adds so much more value and perspective to the idea of time chunking. How many of us realistically spent the entirety of our 8 hours in the office actually working? If you did, praise be to your tenacity and mental health. Bearing in mind that I was not one of those people, I decided to construct a work from home schedule that works perfectly for me.
Time and Task Chunking
Everyone has regular housekeeping activities to do throughout the day - pay bills, schedule doctor appointments, etc. The fact is that most businesses operate on the normal business hours of 9am to 6pm, so naturally we have to balance our time to get these things done.
Time chunking can help increase productivity and ideally minimize procrastination. I’ve found that creating to-do lists and setting time aside to tackle certain tasks has helped keep my focus where I need it to be when trying to get work done. The first thing that I found useful in creating my daily schedule was adding in time blocks for any recurring meeting. Then I thought about the time of day I feel most productive, alternating days where I can allocate this time to focus on 9-5 and passion work. The luxury of working from home is that it has cut out the time we have spent commuting to work. Although it’s extremely tempting to use that time to sleep longer, you would gain so much more time in your day from waking up earlier. Now, our mornings can include morning routines as well as time for passion projects.
Allocating roughly two to three hour chunks throughout my day to focus strictly on my 9-5 work with one hour breaks in between has helped tremendously. This gives me about two hours during my day to attend to any errands or even a second to mentally decompress.
Creating a Routine
Having a morning routine is so important! Your activities don’t necessarily have to be identical each day, but getting your body in the rhythm of waking up and being active at the same time every day is huge for muscle memory. As well as forming good, healthy habits.
Below is an example of my morning routine:
7:00 AM Wake up (brush teeth, wash face, drink a full glass of water)
7:15 AM Stretch/Yoga
7:45 AM Journal
8:00 AM Workout/Gym
9:00 AM Begin Work Day
The most important thing here is including whatever feels right for you. The goal is to connect your mind, body, and spirit to be in your ideal state of productivity.
The Ideal WFH Set Up
As I mentioned before, it is not spiritually healthy for your home to hold in the tense energy produced from mentally and emotionally taxing activities. Try to break the monotony by working from a local cafe. Even a lounge in your residence would do the trick. If you don’t have the option to leave your home even for part of the day, try adding some variety to your work stations at home. You can bounce around from your desk, the kitchen table, or the couch.
Creating a productive environment is essential to your level of productivity, as well as allowing the free flow of any stagnant energy that can disrupt your performance. If you are on the couch this C Table from IKEA is the perfect addition. Be sure your space is clear from any distractions and mess. Engaging your five senses could also help create peace in your presence in work. For me this looks a lot like:
Burning lemongrass and eucalyptus essential oils in my diffuser. Sometimes I like to switch it up with lighting candles or incense.
Playing Lofi/Chillhop or Jazz music in the background.
A cup of matcha along with a glass of water.
A plush fur pillow.
And working close enough to a window where I can occasionally glance outside. If not, I would use the scenic photos that play when my Apple TV has been idle for too long.
Very much so like your morning routine, this should be whatever feels right for you! It’s time to take back your life and wake up from this never ending dream that has now become our lives.
