Look After Your Wellbeing During Remote Working
At RL Performance, I work with my clients to improve their wellbeing and set themselves up for success.
A transcript from my recent video about how to take care of your wellbeing during remote working:
There’s simply no precedent for the current situation we’re working in. The Covid-19 pandemic is changing the way we work on a daily basis, both individually and with our teams.
Working from home every day can be seen, at least initially, to have some advantages:
You’re not travelling for work, so there’s no wasted time on planes or long journeys to and from the airport and offices. Plus, you and those you work with aren’t jet lagged or worn out.
With no travel, time is freed up in your diary to organise and accept invites to more meetings.
There’s less distraction; no office conversations to block out; colleagues coming up to your desk and asking for “a couple of minutes of your time”.
There’s even no stress in the endless battle to find a spare meeting room!
Taking some of these distractions away can actually be a positive thing.
Over a longer period of time however, there are a number of disadvantages that can have a fundamental effect on your wellbeing:
Little or no exercise. Even just that five minutes from the bus stop or train station to or from work, going for a walk to the coffee shop, or to the place you go to get lunch. All of those things have stopped.
Lack of contact with your colleagues, other than what you can see or hear on a audio or video call, which really isn’t much.
A feeling that you have less reasons to reject meeting invites…you’re at home, so you should always be available..right?
A sense of guilt if you step away from your computer, and a colleague who needs something messages you at that precise moment. What excuse could you possibly have for not replying straight away?
No chance to disconnect and refocus between meetings, even just the simple act of walking from one meeting room to another, because all your meetings are virtual now.
Before you know it, you’re doing back-to-back meetings all day long, perhaps only getting up over the course of a day for the bare essentials. Pretty quickly, this is going to leave you feeling:
Tired and worn out;
You need a break, but don’t want to let others down;
Wishing for a holiday, but not wanting to take time off if you can’t go anywhere nice to relax and unwind.
None of these feelings are going to help you feel motivated and engaged in your job, and understandably it’s going to affect your performance. It’s therefore of critical importance that you proactively introduce measures and habits to protect and actually improve your wellbeing.
So, here are my tips for looking after your wellbeing during lockdown:
Communicate to your manager, team, and wider colleagues about the changes you’re making. This comes first because if you don’t explain what you’re doing, then they won’t understand.
In the case of your manager, give examples about how the relentless meetings have made you feel. Tell them about your suggestions to improve wellbeing and ask them to support you.
If you manage a team or are simply part of one, put “remote working wellbeing” on the agenda for discussion and see how other people are feeling. It might just take your comments to give others the confidence to say that they’ve been feeling the same way.
With all your meetings now taking place virtually, diary management is key, and you can use it to manage others whom you work with. Where you have regular meetings scheduled, deliberately block out 5-10 minutes at the end of a 1 hour meeting, or 10-15 minutes for a 2 hour meeting. Get up and go for a walk, do some stretching, lie down for a few minutes; and try to reset your mind for a brief moment.
Additionally to this, where you have empty calendar space for future meetings, block 5-10 minutes out now on either side of the hour.
Enhance your working space however you can. Make sure you’ve got fresh air and natural light. If possible, vary your workspace over the course of the day, maybe spending a few hours in one room, another few hours in a different room.
Do something for yourself every day. Getting outside and going for a walk, a bike ride, or a run is a good way of blocking off time just for you. You could also keep a very brief record over the course of a week to show how you’ve made time for yourself.
Finally, don’t feel guilty to shut down your computer early and log off. After all, you’d do it occasionally in the office if you needed to get away early for something, and there’s no reason you can’t do that at home too.
Thanks for reading. Check out my other blogs or visit my social media links at the bottom of this page for more content about coaching, leadership, and wellbeing.