Is this your idea of an ideal worker? We are taught that working hard can help us achieve our dreams and aspirations. But the term working hard also conjures up an image depicted by four descriptive words - overwhelmed, overcommitted, frustrated and overworked. Those words translate into putting long hours into work. You have to start early, before everyone else, and you have to stay up late when everyone else is already enjoying their afternoons and evenings.
How about this scenario? You are working remotely for the first time. You may be struggling to preserve healthy boundaries between your work life and personal life. You may think that you have to work more to show your loyalty, devotion, and productivity. Maybe your employer is expecting too much. If you slide into your desk chair on a Sunday afternoon and you wind up checking work emails and answering clients, remember that you’re also putting yourself in a place where people may reasonable assume you are happy to respond to a message outside your traditional office hours.
Occasionally, it feels good to check that nagging task or big project off the list, but please do not let working long hours become a bad habit. It could lead to burnout. Burnout rarely happens all at once. Rather, it sneaks up on you, eventually coming to a head after days, weeks, or months of overwork.
While working one additional hour to move a given project forward is likely not debilitating when viewed in a vacuum, it can trigger a revised baseline where you must continue to overwork in order to maintain some new status quo. You do not need to be available all day, every day. You do not need to be always available, respond to every email or notification the moment you get an alert. Feeling otherwise may lead you to be available almost all the time and that causes problems in work-life balance. You do not need to prove you are working. If you think about what others may be wondering it will be difficult to actually concentrate on difficult tasks. The proof of your work lies in your outputs and meeting your goals.
So how do we compartmentalize work from home life? First, acknowledge that burnout happens and take proactive steps. Do so for yourself and your peers. People who suffer from burnout are usually unable to spend the mental energy to recognize what is happening to them. People might be trapped by their own fatigue, too worn out to find the creative solutions needed to take a break. Based on Harvard research and other academic literature, here are some recommendations:
Be Proactive about Burnout for Yourself:
Be Proactive about Burnout for your Peers:
Keep each other accountable. When you notice someone in a different time zone should be asleep, tell them
Everyone has days when they don't want to work but if you hear yourself saying things like: I don’t have the motivation to work, or I feel agitated, or I have nagging headaches, this might be a sign of being overworked for prolonged periods of time. If you are feeling irritable, lethargic, unmotivated and have difficulty sleeping they could be symptoms of burnout. Seriously, evaluate your situation and make changes:
We have compiled a list of symptoms related to burnout, isolation, and anxiety.
Burnout is real – very real – for many people! If you’re feeling down, remember: there is life outside your apartment and a world outside your neighborhood.
Take a step back. Figure out what you could do to solve things. If the job demands are part of the issue, you may want to explore another job.
Remember that if work is giving you anxiety, there are very healthy ways to work from home. It could be that you are not taking the relaxation and activity breaks you need to do things you really love and enjoy. Maybe you need more time in nature or outdoors. Take a couple days off. Plan a longer vacation. Relax with dreams about travel until you can get away for a week-end.
There are also healthy ways to talk about how you are feeling. Your company may offer counseling. Maybe online therapy could help. Check out support groups online. Maybe talking to friends more regularly could brighten your day or help create positive vibes. Remember to virtually socialize with the people you work with on a daily basis.
Above all, and this is a biggie, make time for human interaction. Connected in person with family and friends, or socialize with them virtually, but remember it is important for you to have human connection outside of work.
Multitaskers think they are effective
than is actually the case. Science shows that trying to multitask is inefficient and less productive. Your ability to focus on one thing
at a time proves to have a more direct advantage.
You are smarter than you think, even when it doesn’t feel like it. Intelligence reveals itself in so many ways that you are often not aware of the ways in which you display intelligence through your diversity of strengths.
In working smart, time is not the problem. Distractions - even small ones - are the culprit. Use undivided attention strategies to limit or eliminate them, so you can use energies more meaningfully and productively.
Working smart is the ability to having better judgment and control as much as you can. Choice is the most powerful control you have in life. You can use choice wisely to protect your focus and time with one of these attention management strategies.
Do you know how to overcome those times when you lack enthusiasm for a task? Did you know that motivation is more than desire or willpower? Pinpoint the glitch in your level of enthusiasm and use specific actions to boost your motivation.
In your waking hours your energy is centered in one of four mental states. In working smart the state of flow is the perfect mental zone. But to get there you have to be cognizant of your state of mind.
