On the face of it, working from home sounds like good fun, whether that be all the time for fully remote working or just a portion of the week in hybrid working models. However, isolation can have a negative impact on a person’s mental health, particularly if there’s no definite end point.
Here are tips for ensuring you work at home successfully from a social standpoint.
Stay in touch with communication apps
You’ve gone from seeing your co-workers nearly every minute of the working day to seeing few, if any, people at all. That can be quite a culture shock.
Work will still be done. Communication will take place over email, text message and probably even WhatsApp messaging too, but take the time at least once a day to video call your colleagues for the social benefit.
Video facilities such as Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts, 3CX video conferencing or even WhatsApp video calling are all good ways of doing this.
Organise your day
You may feel like you don’t have a real purpose for the day when working from home, which in turn can impact your mood.
Taking the time to structure and organise your day will give you goals to focus on. Why not give yourself specific times to achieve these by? This keeps the mind stimulated and is of real benefit to your mental wellbeing.
Apps such as Microsoft Planner and Trello are great for structuring the tasks you need to achieve. And they can be shared with managers if that’s a requirement.
Take part in a class
Keeping fit is a test when you work remotely. There is no commute and getting regular exercise can be tough.
Luckily there are a lot of classes on YouTube that people can get involved in. Use your lunchbreak to log off from your PC and join a class. Not only will you feel better, but you’ll break up your day.
Make conference calls when working from home
Although work and communicating can be done via email, set up and organise a conference call once or twice a week to maintain the habit of verbal communication.
The same things get done but it can be a refreshing change for your mind. Equally hearing about everyone’s experiences can help spark new ideas.
Don’t neglect downtime
Setting yourself tasks for the working day and ensuring you have enough time to complete them is all part of the challenge of remote working. Another difficulty is making sure you separate work and leisure or downtime.
Set up your working in your new office space, and once the working day is up, do not go into that room until the next day and get on with living your everyday life.
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