10 Ways to Stay Motivated While Working From Home
Danish Junejo
HR OD & Excellence Professional | Soft Skills Trainer | Neuro-Linguistic Master Practitioner | LSSYB | LSSGB | LSSBB
In these times of pandemic virus situations, we all have been facing a lockdown to prevent ourselves and the people around us from COVID – 19. The lockdown has made many organizations, therefore, working from home, where employees can continue earning in these disastrous times of the pandemic.
When we talk about working from home, people also get lazy and demotivated as they have nothing else to do, just sitting idle, in front of their computers or watching television all day long. No sufficient nature is consumed as we are scared to go out exercise or socialize. Employees also get demotivated since it is found in studies that socializing and meeting different people generates a chemical (hormone) in our body known as serotonin. Serotonin is a happy hormone that keeps us motivated and moving on just like dopamine which is generated when achieving a goal or reward.
Employees have nothing rewarding or no such goals in their life or are not even able to socialize therefore they cannot generate enough happy hormones in their bodies. In this article, I am, therefore, discussing 10 ways to stay motivated while working from home during this pandemic outbreak.
The 10 ways which I follow to keep myself stay motivated and healthy, which I believe will also help you stay motivated.
1) Wake up early
For many, this can be the most difficult part of life, especially when working from. With no office to go and no boss to tap his watch and look irritated if you are late and bosses not having much control over keeping a check and balance on their employees, there can be often little motivation for employees to get up at a reasonable time and start working.
Training yourself to get up on a reasonable time and starting your day like you do have a more traditional job will get you into a routine and make your discipline to increase your productivity. According to studies it has been found that people who wake up early are more proactive and live a healthier lifestyle as compared to those who do not wake up early.
Personally I have found that waking up early makes me more productive, much more quickly.
2) Take a cold bath
Taking a bath is a natural and daily routine task for all but many prefer a hot shower instead of a cold bath, as a hot shower is comparatively relaxing and more soothing. But guess what, it is found by studies that a cold shower actually has a lot of health benefits. Some of these are listed below:
a) Reduced Stress Levels
b) Improve Emotional Resilience
c) Helps to Relieve Depression
d) Higher Level of alertness
e) Robust immune system
f) Increased will-power
g) Helps in weight loss
h) Improve skin and hair
i) Increase in testosterone
j) Increase in blood pressure
If you have read any of the James Bond books, you surely have noticed his unique take on showers. Bond, tough guy extraordinaire, started with hot water but turned the temperature down to freezing cold for the very end of his bathing routine. This character quirk is theorized to be a nod to Bond’s Scottish ancestry since a “hot-to-cold” shower is often referred to as a “Scottish Shower.”
If you’d like to take advantage of the surprising benefits of cold showers, I’d suggest starting off by emulating Bond’s bathing routine. You could also take an alternating shower by simply switching your water temperature from hot to cold every 10-20 seconds. When you’re feeling brave and have the mental toughness you need to survive the shivering, try a full blast cold shower on for size.
3) Put on actual work cloths
It’s incredibly tempting when working from home to wear the most comfortable set of cloths you own whenever possible, especially since most of the time you are rolling out of your bed and working soon after. Again, with no co-workers what is the point of dressing up. Right?
According to Dr. Karen Pine, professor of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire and Fashion Psychologist had this to say about dressing up for work
“When we put on an item of clothing it is common for the wearer to adopt the characteristics associated with that garment. A lot of clothing has symbolic meaning for us, whether it's 'professional work attire' or 'relaxing weekend wear', so when we put it on we prime the brain to behave in ways consistent with that meaning."
In short, you will feel the way you dress and this is why for many jobs different dresses are designed.
It also does not mean you should wear a suit all the time, you can also wear an adequate and proper dressing which can make you feel at work when we talk about working from home wearing jeans and at least a t-shirt.
4) Make a to-do list and schedule
Do you face troubles when deciding what to do and what not to do? Do you often forget tasks that are most important to you or your job? Or do you face trouble managing time for your tasks and responsibilities? If yes, then this is what you need to follow.
You have most probably heard of the SMART goals where S = Specific, M = Measurable, A = Attainable, R = Realistic and T = Time-bound
But, what if we have too many goals followed in a day? Even if our goals fit into SMART criteria it becomes challenging to follow all of those.
There is a new concept, therefore, which helps up to keep records and monitor all of our goals which is “Most Important Tasks” (MITs). The concept says that every day the first thing that a person should work on is the MITs, which means that you have to write down carefully all of the tasks that you have to do; later, when you have noted all of those MITs start framing them into a time and its break downs, i.e. if you want to write an article of 500 words you need to research on the topic which is task 1 of this goal, now bound it with time like 1 hour of research. Then comes noting down important pointers and brainstorming, give that an hour, the third thing will be writing let’s give it 2 hours and finally evaluate your writing in half an hour. This gives you an overall time frame of 4 and a half-hours.
This way you will be able to manage multiple goals and their breakdowns in a day. Remember to keep a section of miscellaneous time for other activities or a frame of time for each task in misc. where you can relax and or if the task needs more time, you can manage it accordingly.
5) Do not work where you sleep
We all have a bad habit of Eat, Sleep, Work, and Repeat at the same place when it comes to working from home. Believe me or not, this really is a bad idea. Why? It is because our brain works on definitions, like, the bed is for sleeping, office is for work, the boss is to make your life difficult, the leader is the only person who knows to lead, gyms are for exercise, and so on.
In this scenario, if we work at bed laying down relaxed, we will fall lazy as our brain only knows that when on a bed you need to sleep, this will make you lazy and disable the working mode function of your brain.
Studies have also found that when a person sits up-right (s)he gets even more energetic and productive due to an increase in blood flow and better oxygen supply to the body.
6) Exercise every day
When you are working from home especially in these times of a pandemic lockdown; you do not get a chance to do so many activities as you would do in normal days, like going out for a walk or socializing. This makes our body and muscle tissues lazy and saggy, lowering the overall blood flow in the body.
When you exercise it makes your body more active by increasing the blood flow in the body enabling to breathe in more oxygen that helps to get more energy. But still, there is a confusion that arises in people that if we cannot go out how can we exercise? Right? The answer is simple, to exercise we do not need a gym or weights at home, we can still do bodyweight exercises like pushups, body stretches, bunny hops, squats, lunges, burpees and much more. My favorite exercise at home is Yoga, which is a full-body exercise, increases lung capacity and also increases blood flow in the body and increases metabolism. Well, you can go for anything you like it’s all upon your choice. You can easily find online tutorials and tips for exercises at home or exercises without equipment for reference and guidance.
The point here is that instead of sitting at one place doing nothing you must keep doing something to make your body healthy and active, as a healthy body leads to a healthy brain leading you to a more energetic and productive lifestyle. This saves you from fatigue and enables you to achieve more tasks and completing more goals.
7) Avoid Distractions
When we are working at an office, we are under complete check and balance, and under surveillance, whereas, at home, we are not, we could be using multiple channels of social media or could be sitting with our friends when working. Or even worse, we can be wired with a multitude of family issues such as looking after kids or tending to home chores. These all are forms of distractions that consume our time and energy while working from home.
This distraction causes us to lose focus and procrastinate on our work, therefore, it is always recommended to avoid such distractions, when we are talking about family, well yes, we cannot avoid them, but at least we can train them to not to disturb when you are working, for example, you can get this into the knowledge of your family members that you are working and they should not be disturbing you during that time, besides that it is also recommended to turn off your cell-phone and other social media sites and not to open those unless you are done with your task.
The best practice here would be to utilize these when you are done with your MITs. For example, when you are done with your task 1 on the list, use your miscellaneous/spare time to relax. In this way, you will not only complete your tasks on time but also will be motivated all the way till the end.
8) Reward yourself
Reward or Reinforcement works all the time, once you are done accomplishing your MITs and have scheduled all the tasks, start working on those and when you are done with all of the tasks it’s time to reward yourself with what so ever you like, i.e. social media, talking to friends, having a power nap, talking or chatting over the phone, and the list goes on. You can perform what so ever suits you best and helps you to relax and stay motivated.
Anthony Robbins in one of his talks said that “Rewarding yourself is one of the greatest motivators, this way you train your brain to avoid distractions and achieve your goal easily”. In one of his talks, he also said that “You can only build on success.” As you celebrate your success, it creates a deeper hunger to build an even stronger base and pull yourself to even greater victory and triumph.
9) Set a time for socializing
We, humans, are known as social animals for a reason, which is that we require to socialize, meet and greet people, see some other faces and living creatures, we need time to talk and connect with people. It is because we are born in social groups and live our entire lives as a part of a society, therefore, the social element cannot be removed from the evolution of an individual.
According to studies it has been found that when we socialize we generate a hormone in our body which is called serotonin, this is a happy hormone that keeps us happy, motivated and active. It has also been found that people who socialize more, live longer and comparatively healthier life than those who do not socialize or socialize less.
Therefore, we must also make a time to socialize when it comes to working from home, as it will help us reduce stress and will also activate our minds and body along with boosting our energy levels to keep us healthy.
10) Have a side project to fill dead space
It has been some time since the lockdown and I have already experienced a lot in these times. 2 departments have the most work in any organization. These are HR and IT. Even when working from home, these two departments need to provide full support to the employees of the company. These departments, even working from home need to help and enable employees and processes to work efficiently and smoothly without any distractions.
Being an HR professional, the same is the case with me. I worked more than my job timings because of which my day passed without any boredom, whereas some of my friends who had nothing or very little to do got bored and depressed very easily. Apart from that, I have also experienced that in days when I have nothing to do my brain and body goes under stress and I often face depression.
Just in order to avoid all of these situations we have to make our day productive with various tasks in which we utilize all of our time with. Various tasks to keep our mind and body functioning, such as writing, reading, having a separate time for exercise, cleaning learning a new skill, etc.
I know that not everyone is working from home, there would be also individuals who have lost their jobs due to economic crises caused by the pandemic. The purpose of this article is not to only motivate people who are working from home but also the people who are no more working and rather sitting idle during this lockdown. These people can also benefit from this article and stay motivated, healthy and safe at home.
Remember that “modern-day problems require modern-day solutions”
Keep moving, Stay at home and stay safe