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Is it possible to achieve (and maintain) a work-life balance while working from home?
The baby is crying, the doorbell is ringing, the dog is making sounds you've never heard before, and your Slack channel is dinging repeatedly. Is working from home really all it's cracked up to be?
We think so. With the right boundaries, it's possible to create space for your life and your work—even when both happen within your 700-square-foot apartment.
There is definitely a push to undermine the benefits of remote work. As they make their cases to return their employees to the office, many organizations claim that working from home hurts employee well-being.
While that's a convenient narrative for companies who have sunk billions of dollars into their offices, it's not the whole story.
Working From Home: No Work Setup is "Perfect"
Working from home has its difficulties, especially when it comes to achieving a "perfect" balance between home life and work life. Before we can make any argument for remote work, we have to ditch the idea of achieving perfection. It's not going to happen.
Working parents can find it difficult to work in the same living space as their children. Younger workers might find it challenging to work in a shared apartment while their roommates do the same. Working from home can exacerbate feelings of anxiety or depression.
On the other hand, many of us are familiar with the pain points of working in an office. Studies have shown that full-time office workers are also the unhappiest workers. Mental health website, Tracking Happiness, found that fully remote employees report a happiness level about 20 percent greater than office-centric ones.
Another survey from Future Forum compared knowledge workers who worked full-time in the office, in a hybrid setup, and fully remote. It found:
- Least Satisfied Workers: In-office workers
- Middle-Ground Satisfaction: Hybrid workers
- Most Satisfied: Fully remote workers
Why is Work-Life Balance So Important?
Instead of discussing the many benefits of a healthy work-life balance, let's talk about what happens when you have none.
Overworked employees are negatively impacted by stress, anxiety, and burnout. By constantly attempting to push through—without taking any breaks, downtime, or vacation—employees experience a lack of motivation, decreased productivity, and even depression.
By keeping their work-life balance in check, remote workers can make sure they keep their workday productive, keep their home life healthy, and make time to disconnect from both and reconnect with themselves (preferably in silence.)
10 Work-Life Balance Tips for Working From Home
It's unlikely that a remote worker will "fall" into balance. Finding work-life balance requires remote workers to try different techniques, create schedules, work on prioritization, and create steadfast boundaries.
Here are some of our favorite work-life balance tips to set boundaries, avoid fatigue, and create space for personal time.
1. Have a Dedicated Work Space
Just because you don't need to hop in your car or ride the train to an office doesn't mean you shouldn't have a dedicated workspace. Even if your living space is small and necessitates that you break down your workspace daily, do it.
Create an organized desk space that says "This is where I work," and use it to complete all of the work that requires concentration.
2. Create a Schedule + Stick to it
The key to maintaining work-life balance is creating your balance. Create a remote work structure that works for you. Don't be afraid to try new things, keep what works, and ditch what doesn't add to productivity in your work day.
Depending on your remote work situation, you might have a schedule set for you. However, if your remote work setup is more flexible, then it's even more important to set your own working hours.
Use technology and organizational tools like your calendar, Slack, or Microsoft Teams to set away messages, share availability, and provide a look into your daily schedule.
Here are some of our favorite hybrid work schedule templates to use as a starting point.
3. Create a Morning Routine (Get Dressed!)
No rule commands that every person be a "morning person."
However, if you work a 9-5ish schedule, then it's best to have a morning routine that sets you ahead of schedule when you start your work. If you work from home, then you've already eliminated a morning commute. So, you don't need to deal with car trouble, bad weather commutes, or crowded trains. You're already ahead of the game.
Create a morning routine that delineates work and home. Try to do all of your "home activities" before clocking in. This can include eating breakfast, making coffee, and maybe getting a little walk or stretching in before work.
After completing your home activities, here's our favorite "hack" for separating work from home. Get dressed. Yes, it's tempting to work in our pajama pants, but dressing for work gives you a psychological push to feel "at work." Try out some of your favorite smart casual looks to ooze confidence on your Zoom meetings.
4. Schedule Breaks
If you're like me, it's easy to fall into what I call "heads down" work. All of a sudden, you look up, and you don't know where the time could have gone. Also, did you eat lunch?
While it feels great to achieve flow during your workday, it's essential to take breaks. If you need to schedule your lunch break, a quick walk, or time to stretch, do it.
5. Change up Your Workspace
Just because you're working from home does not mean that you need to be chained to your home office. Take your work to a coffee shop, an outdoor workspace, or the library. Seriously, your local library is the original (free!) coworking space!
One of the huge perks of flexible work is the ability to take your office space anywhere. If you feel stifled by working in your home office or in the corner of your living room, consider taking your work elsewhere, even if only for a few hours.
6. Move
Remember that. one yoga class that you wanted to take, except that it's held at 10:30 am on a Tuesday?
Well, maybe you can schedule it into your productive day. Your mental well-being is important. A tried and true way to improve your mental health is by making the time to move throughout your workday.
How to Move Throughout Your Workday
- 1 Minute: Try a quick downward dog, a one-minute plank, some jumping jacks, or a few pushups to get your blood flowing.
- 5 Minutes: Do a quick search of stretches that "undo" the hunch effect of working from a chair all day.
- 10 Minutes: Roll out your yoga mat and try a few sun salutations.
- 15 Minutes: Put on a few of your favorite songs and wiggle it out.
- 30 Minutes: Leave your desk and go for a short walk around the block or a stretch in your backyard.
- 45 Minutes: Queue up Peloton or your favorite YouTube workout class, and get a quick session in!
- 60 Minutes: Go for a long walk and knock out a chapter or two in your audiobook.
- 60+ Minutes: Have back-to-back meetings that you don't need to participate in? Take them on the go while walking around the neighborhood or trying a new workout (on mute, of course!)
7. Take Time to Connect with Team Members
Some of the most compelling anti-remote work studies have named loneliness and social isolation the biggest detriments of working from home.
Find time to connect with your coworkers and team members. This doesn't mean holding mandatory Zoom happy hours, but it might mean scheduling 1:1s where you talk about anything but work. Discuss your favorite television shows, events you've attended, or your shared hobbies.
Human connection is important, and it's one of the elements of an in-office setup that remote work cannot really replicate. If you're looking to foster increased connection with your team, there are lots of virtual team-building exercises you can try.
If your coworkers aren't into "connecting" like you are, no problem! You can use LinkedIn or other social media platforms to find your people. Consider connecting with individuals in your industry and/or in your area. There are guaranteed to be other folks looking to connect as they navigate remote work, too.
8. Live By Lists
We love lists here at Career Contessa. Specifically, we love using lists to increase productivity and improve work-life balance.
Use to-do lists to prioritize your tasks, split them up over your workweek, and ensure that you don't need to log back into work because you forgot to complete an important task.
Use technology like your preferred online calendar, project management software, and other productivity apps to build and manage your to-do lists. If you're more of a notebook person, use your personal notebook to manage your daily to-dos.
Your best to-do lists will lay out your tasks, descriptions of the work involved, and the time it will take to achieve.
9. Sign Off (+ Stay Off)
Make sure that your workday ends before the next one begins. If this sounds silly, it's not. I can not count the number of times I left my laptop open, took a shower, did some work, changed into my pajamas, did more work, and so on. All of a sudden, it's Friday, and I am not sure if I ever *really* logged out of work?
A good practice for any remote worker is to close your computer down at the end of the workday. Clean your desk, close your notebooks, push your chair into your desk, and stop working. This sort of ritualistic clean-up
10. Commute
One of our favorite tips to help differentiate "home" from "work" is to have a daily "commute." This can mean several things. Your commute can be a walk around the block, a jaunt on your Peloton, or a ritual like brewing your special coffee.
BONUS TIP: Take Your Vacation
When working remotely, it can be tempting to remain "on the clock" from whoever you are. Taking a proper break is just as important as it would be when commuting to an office—especially if the line between your home life and work life is already fuzzy.
Take your PTO—and actually take it. Don't promise to check in or "be available" for anything. Set that OOO message and take the vacation that you've earned.
