5 Tips To Avoid Work From Home (WFH) Burnout

With Pandemic creating havoc all around the world, more than half of the world’s working class people are working from home (WFH). The acronym WFH is being used quite widely now, by businesses and business journals.

The initial jubilation of employees on being asked to work from home on a long term basis, short lived. Even though, you don’t have to wake up early to commute to work, WFH has its own challenges. More and more people are reporting heightened stress and anxiety and complete burnout at the end of their day’s work.

In the attempt to show their productivity to the senior management, staff are working long hours. Juggling work with household chores and kids at home, has been quite challenging for most parents.

So, what could be done? How can you maintain a good mental health, while being productive at work? How to maintain the boundaries between work and family?

These are a 5 tips to enjoy your WFH while being super productive.

1- Dedicated workspace

Its always better to have a dedicated desk for your work, ideally at a quiet place (away from distractions) with ample of sun light. Better to keep the desk tidy without any clutter. Ideally you should have an ergonomic chair, which helps to keep your spine straight avoiding back and neck pain.

2- Time Blocking: stick to your original working hours

Even if you have more time now, as you avoid the commute time to work, its very important to stick to your original working hours (9–5). Having more time should not mean working more hours, unless you are required to. It is a well known fact that working long hours is detrimental to your productivity. As per one study done by Harvard Business Review, one individual is most productive for only 3 hours out of his 8–10 working hours. So, its better to log-in and log-off at the required time. If you are a leader of a team, you should encourage the same within the team members, so that everyone is more happy and productive.

Another quick tip here is- Time blocking will definitely help. Blocking your calendar for lunch or break, reduces your urge to go and check that email even when you are having a coffee or putting cloths into the washing machine.

3- Your extra time — Rejuvenate your mind

Now that you have extra time in your hand, you could read a book, meditate, play with your dog, go for a jog or help your kids with their homework which you always struggled to find the time for before. You could even play your favourite video game, as research shows playing video games activates your brain, which may help you to be more productive.

4- Breaks (What about social breaks?)

Taking regular breaks is another best way to be more relaxed and productive. A 5 minute coffee break or a walk in the garden instantly increases the productivity. How about a virtual coffee break with your colleagues ? More and more organizations are adopting the culture of virtual coffee breaks to give their staff a chance to interact with others virtually. Speaking to someone does reduce the stress level and boost productivity.

5- Planning your next day

Before you log-off, it definitely helps to plan your next day and to write down your action plans or tasks. This helps you in keeping you mind calm, as you would know the following day, one day in advance and prepare accordingly and you won’t run to your morning meeting in panic.

In conclusion, I would say working from is a bliss when you know how to manage your time between personal and official works. Happy WFH 🙂

Hack Your Mind To Take Massive Action

Has it ever occurred to you that you know what to do to take the next big step for your future success but you don’t take any action? You keep talking to yourself that you are not ready yet, and need more time or more knowledge or you need to wait for the right time…the list goes on and on.

Procrastination is the major dream killer of so many entrepreneurs. So, why don’t we take action? Let’s try to understand, the brain. It’s called the Action Triangle.

Our brain does not send the signal for us to work, until it believes that the action will produce the result. But if you don’t take action, there won’t be any result. So, this is kind of a vicious circle, which I call it as “ The action Triangle”.

So, how do we get our brain and it’s billions of neurons to send the signal for our body to take action when we don’t have any result to show for? How do we take action to pick up the phone to make that call or start designing your website for your e-commerce business or start your workout routine without seeing the success?

Brain & Body Link

The trick here is- Our brain can’t differentiate between the actual happened incident and vividly imagined incident. A case study of three groups of basket ball players is worth mentioning here to understand the brain and action link.

For this study, three small groups of basket ball players were selected. The first group were asked to practice for few hours every day shooting the ball into the basket. The 2nd group were asked to only visualize the shooting of the ball into the basket without any physical practice and the third group were not asked to take any mental or physical action.

After a week, all the three groups were asked to perform to take a test. It was to everyone’s surprise, the the group which practiced mentally (Visualized) scored the highest even though they physically didn’t practice during the week. The group which practiced physically, scored the second followed by the group who didn’t practice at all. This test reveals, that even though, they never physically practiced, while practicing in their mind, they scored every time they shot the ball, with 100% success. Where as, the team who practiced physically, didn’t have 100% success in the practice session which reflected in their day of the test.

Our brain can’t differentiate what has been performed physically or mentally, as it understands impressions which may come from mind or body

The Mind Hack

To get the brain to send the signal to take action- We just have to vividly imagine the action and result, as if its has already happened. The more sensory organs we involve in this imagination process, the more vivid the imagination gets. The more vivid, the imagination is, the more action the brain is triggered to take.

So, these are the steps to follow as a routine, repeatedly multiple number of times in a day, to trigger the brain to take action.

Meditation

1- Close your eyes and relax every part of your body

2- See your self already accomplished the success.

3- Feel the success. This is quite important. Feeling involves emotion, jubilation, enthusiasm, pride, happiness etc

4- See your self taking massive action and go back to visualize the success.

5- Do it multiple times a day. Especially before going to sleep and after waking up.

6- While meditating, speak loudly and in affirmation your goal and end result as if it has already happened.

7- Keep a pen and paper near you to note down any points that come to you during this meditation.

The above method will work for anything you want to accomplish. May it reducing weight, increase sales, having a dream job or having a better relationship with anyone.

https://link.medium.com/veGgCnrEN9