Articles Lifestyle Work From Home Habits We All Need To Drop

Work From Home Habits We All Need To Drop

Bad habits can really be stubborn and difficult to break. Find out which persistent work habits you should unlearn and remove from your everyday work life.

Being home for too long lets us develop habits and some are not necessarily healthy. With this becoming a routinary part of our lives, it might take some time to be able to break from them. Here is a list of habits that would be beneficial for us to drop, especially when you are working from home.

Skipping Breaks

Most working adults experience an energy rush at certain times of the day: feeling fired up and hyper productive. Employees keep their eyes glued to their laptop screens. Some even hold their pee or refuse to go to the toilet because of job duties.

This habit is unhealthy and unsustainable. Not only does it damage your physical health but also stretches your mental health thin. The mind and the body are not designed for all day work mode.

Take time to relax your jaw, bring down your shoulders, and straighten your posture. Then rotate your head slowly, close your eyes, and breathe deeply. This is necessary for flushing out negative frenetic energy and spending your day feeling alive and refreshed.

Breaks are not wasted time because the human body needs to slow down from constant stimulation. Just like your phone needs to recharge, you also need to unplug even just for a bit. When you feel rejuvenated, then you can get back to work.

Having Too Many Breaks

Too much of anything isn’t good. Likewise, prolonged break time may distract you from the things you’re supposed to be doing. Procrastinating will make you cram at work and stress yourself out in the end.

Put away distractions from your work desk, like trinkets or pictures of your loved ones. Stop yourself from staring at the wall clock or thinking about your work crush. These are cues for daydreaming or losing your focus on work. Set a definite break time and get back to work when it’s done.

Using Pseudo-Calmers

When taking your office break, avoid pseudo-calmers like smoking or using your phone. Aside from their detrimental effects on your physical health, both smoking and excessive phone use are linked to stress, anxiety, and clinical depression.

While some like its calming and cooling effect, smoking will cause irreversible damage on your lungs, along with other body parts, in the long run. Substitute it with non-nicotine anti-smoking lozenges.

Using social media can be entertaining for a while, but it distracts you from job responsibilities. It also strains your eyes and causes you double exposure to bluelight: the harmful light coming from both your mobile device and your work device.

It’s better to close your eyes for 5 minutes, open them again, and move your eyes slowly in different directions. This eye exercise can reduce eye strain from staring at your phone and computer all day.

Skipping Meals

Food is not just for satisfying your taste buds; it is fuel for the body. Without adequate food, you cannot fully function at work. Take time to prepare a meal for yourself. There are tons of internet recipes for quick and healthy meals.

There are many studies that show how skipping meals affects your mood for the day. Meal intake depends on your body’s needs. It’s important to listen to your body, so fill up, especially during your break time.

Crossing The Work-Life Boundary

It can be tempting to finish a task right here and right now. When you have a demanding boss, it’s all the more pressuring. Just one more file to upload, right? Just one more project to edit and submit, or another webinar to attend, for credit.

One task leads to another task, and then another task. Stop working beyond usual job hours. Over-productivity can cause employee burnout. While it’s good to work hard, don’t let your tasks eat up the rest of your day.

Draw a definite line between working and resting. Set a schedule to stick to for work and strictly stop when you have to. As much as you can, don’t entertain job related emails or messages past work hours.

You probably have chores to do as well. Don’t let your dishes stack up and don’t leave your loved ones at home unnoticed. Take time to bond with your parents or your friends, while dealing with work responsibilities on your plate. There is always a healthy balance you can strike between your job and your personal life.

Cutting Back On Sleep

This is connected to procrastinating and overworking. Some people don’t sleep because they left too many overdue tasks, while others lose sleep over tasks they want to do just to impress their superiors.

Sleep is a healthy activity that busy working people take for granted. If you get the chance, doze off. If you find it hard to fall asleep, take joy in being idle. Even if it’s just for an hour, your mind and body need to gain back energy and vigor.

Staying Up Late

Most people find themselves scrolling through social media past midnight. This can feel normal and even relaxing sometimes. But it will come back to bite you: in the future, at least.

Sometimes, people need to pull all-nighters. This is beyond their control and mostly is from work demands. But during the times that they don’t have to, they still stay up late. Are you one of them? If you are, then it’s time to break this habit.

Save yourself the boredom of going through studies linking staying up late to a bunch of sicknesses.  Don’t you hate it when you work knowing that you haven’t slept enough? Most people do. The feeling of dry eyes, getting dizzy and suffering through random headaches can be annoying.

Discipline yourself to sleep early. Condition yourself to enjoy being in bed. Savor the feeling of your head hitting the pillow and touching soft blankets. Romanticize sleep so you look forward to it at the end of the day.

If you are a social media addict, you can still avoid getting lost in your explore page and news feed. Put your phone away an hour before sleeping. Set an alarm not just for waking up but also for going to bed. This will reset your body clock and hopefully make you quit your night owl habits.

Leaving Things To The Last Minute

Our old friend in college can’t seem to leave us alone. Cramming is a bad habit that goes beyond a work from home setup. This can jeopardize work quality and delay the whole team’s progress.

Staying ahead of schedule is always beneficial; not only for the people you work with, but also for yourself. When you do tasks in advance, you save yourself the stress and hassle of working under pressure, and dealing with the consequences of unfinished work.

Work Hard, Rest Well

People wear themselves out and bend over to the demands of life. Along the way, we pick up habits that are difficult to drop. It’s understandable when we grind and hustle for our dreams, but not at the expense of our health and well-being.

What work-from-home habits do you want to drop? Have you gotten rid of certain habits you picked up in the past? Remember to take it easy and allow yourself time to say goodbye to your old habits and welcome newer, healthier ones.


Sources:

Cox, L. K. (2020, October 8). Why Overworking Is Bad For Your Health (and Your Career). Hubspot. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/overwork-bad-health

Lane, C. (2021, March 23). Does Cramming For Your Exams Actually Work? Top Universities. https://www.topuniversities.com/blog/does-cramming-your-exams-actually-work

Middlemiss, N. (2017, October 15). Stressed employees skipping breaks to keep working. HRD New Zealand. https://www.hcamag.com/nz/news/general/stressed-employees-skipping-breaks-to-keep-working/150826

Savin, J., & Savin, J. (2020, February 4). Why skipping this one meal could lead to depression. Cosmopolitan. https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/body/diet-nutrition/a30762926/skipping-meals-mental-health/

Stibich, M. (2021, May 19). 10 Top Health Benefits of Sleep. Verywell Health. https://www.verywellhealth.com/top-health-benefits-of-a-good-nights-sleep-2223766