Hoping everyone is taking precautionary measures and are doing fine.
As you must be aware that India has lifted the lockdown today after over 70 days. Though there will be a gradual easing of lockdown under unlock 1.0 which includes allowing of essential and non-essential goods and service providers, temples, liquor stores, grooming centers, food and eatery shop, except those in shopping complexes and malls to open their shops. Offices can have around 10% to 50% attendance at maximum. But most of the companies in IT, retail, supply chain, fashion, schooling industry are asking employees rather advising to WFH and visit the office only if they can’t do something from home as per the company criteria.
As the country entered the 4th consecutive lockdown and now an unsure unlock 1.0, many employees are forced with 100% work to run the companies in full swing. There are repeated cases of people complaining over web surveys, that they are now finding it hard, stressful from the prolonged WFH. A lot of people, including me suffer from lack of sleep, restlessness, severe headaches, backaches and anxiety.
Most of the time, these days go sit in infront of the digital screen with an unusual fashion status of a formal shirt, tie, and boxers. Initially, the WFH was real fun, where I could sit anywhere, at any angle or posture. However, as the days have gone by, my capability to tackle the digital screen and constant phone calls started making me a little anxious. The days were no longer fun now, I badly wanted to go out and see my friends, I felt tedious and wanted to sleep the whole day. The mental health was getting disturbed.
This comes out as a shock for us as employees adapting the WFH lifestyle are the ones at the highest risk of suffering from stress and personal freedom that too at their own home. WFH is a host that is only welcoming challenges and mental problems if not taken care of properly. Most people are also enjoying the new normal and are excellently managing their work and life balance. Introvert Employees are having a moment of their lifetime, they no more need to interact with everyone daily, can avoid participating in office gossips and politics. They surprisingly ace the WFH and enjoys their own space.
Having a Work from Home for a month was always a fantasy, which came true in the pandemic for most of us. But let us have a look at ways to manage the stress of everyday work from home.
1. Schedule your day
Strictly schedule your WFH and ensure providing yourself a timeout between every meeting and call. Find out a time when you’re most active during the days, complete your work at that efficient time. Prioritize the tasks and complete the most challenging ones first this will excite you and the complete the least exciting tasks throughout the day. Make sure to use the technology wisely and smartly, a lot of apps creates a distraction while you use your mobile phone, try doing a lot of work from the laptop only. Learn to use the available app and tools to your advantage.
2. Start saying NO
During WFH you’ll start getting a lot of requests from your lazy colleagues, most of which is not your job or area of expertise, though you might have enough time to do their task. But get comfortable in refusing upfront and simply help or suggest them to stick to their jobs. Saying yes to them is equal to saying no to yourself. Whatever the task is, realize that saying a polite NO will save time for both. Of course, you should never be denied anything to your boss, and interns should learn and help to almost everyone, as this is the best time to grow your network.
3. Grow Networking and visibility
Instead of cribbing over the fact that work-from-home is taking up your nerves and you can’t go out to meet your friends, instead, start asking for bits of help from your seniors who you couldn’t talk back in the office. This will not only help you relax from the current work, but you might also find an easier way or a shortcut to the tasks you are doing as a fresher. Increasing your visibility will also let people know that you have aced the WFH condition by including activities apart from work also.
4. Take proper Sleep
The first step towards having a sound sleep is that you stop using all the digital devices right from the evening. This is quite hard to keep yourself away from the devices, but be aware that using the screens later in the night will become a very stressful mover-over, it will also affect your sleep patterns and make it difficult to get your regular sleep patterns. Also, it is not healthy to reduce your sleep as it will affect your productivity. Getting control over your sleep pattern is quite challenging but can be a real stress buster.
5. Get more Family time
During regular office days we use to miss spending time with the family, this is the opportunity to manage your time with work and family. Kids, pets, and elder parents can be a positive distraction to lose stress from the work. Engage in cooking with them, sit for a short break eat fruits and see how magically it reduces your stress from the work-from-home condition.
Work from Home (WFH) can be challenging under prolonged circumstances. But find yourself cutting from the slack and say no at times to keep a proper time for yourself too. Keep yourself motivated and cheerful to have a productive and fun-loving stress-free WFH.
People who are the frontline warriors are already adopting the “New Normal” and continuing their journey and career ahead. We should take inspiration from them and inculcate the “New Normal.”
