Working from home: four principles for balancing personal life and home office

Since the pandemic, working at least partially from home has become more or less the norm in various sectors. However, many workers still have problems balancing their personal and professional lives and being productive when working from home. Therefore, let us recap four basic principles of the work-life balance.

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These tips were published by The Muse website.

If possible, keep your work and personal life physically separate

If your living situation allows it, you should keep work and personal life physically separate. This means working in a different place from where you "live". Ideally, you should not work in the same room in which you then sleep. Otherwise, you will be unable psychologically to separate the two worlds and you will never have a proper rest.

At some point stop working, no matter what

You should define in advance at what point you will finish work each day. You can set this point in terms of time (e.g. 6 p.m.) or in other ways (e.g. after completing a certain number of routine tasks). For the benefit of your mental health, you should learn actually to shut down your computer at this point and leave work alone.

Do not jump between work and personal matters during the day

Working from home tempts us to half-attend to both our private matters and work in parallel. We wash our clothes between video calls and browse e-shops between writing work e-mails. In this case, however, we do neither thing properly. Learn to focus on just one activity at a time and do not jump between work and personal matters.

Relax and give yourself a digital detox

Learn to relax effectively. After many hours of working on the computer or the phone, it is a good idea to take a digital detox. If possible, go for a walk in nature, play with your children, or otherwise eliminate screens and monitors around you.



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Article source The Muse - U.S. website focused on smart career advice and long-term professional development
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