The COVID-19 pandemic has made 2020 a difficult year for many. However, it has also heralded some major innovations when it comes to keeping things running at a distance. One such innovation is the wider adoption of remote employment. While remote work opportunities aren’t new, the pandemic has revealed their ability to provide safer working conditions for employees while also enabling employers the ability to save the money it would take to keep employees on site. However, working from home raises some new challenges for the newly initiated, and this guide serves to help remote workers overcome the obstacles in order to prosper from the comfort of their own homes.
Staring At a Screen All Day
Remote work, by its very nature, is typically work that is done entirely on a computer. This isn’t always the case, but the idea is that many jobs can be done using only a computer connected to the internet. This means that most stay at home jobs will entail spending an inordinate amount of time staring into an LED monitor. This can introduce a few major problems if you’re not careful. For starters, the blue tinted light from LED monitors can disrupt your ability to fall asleep, meaning that late night work can keep you from catching your forty winks each night. On the other hand, sitting at a desk all day can lead to poor posture and, eventually, back pain. Both of these problems can, in turn, contribute to depression, as can the lack of sunlight. In order to avoid these problems, you only need to take a couple of minor precautions.
For starters, gaming glasses can help you filter out the blue light of your monitor in order to allow you the good night’s rest you deserve. Sitting for prolonged periods can be offset by investing in a standing desk, but a low budget alternative is simply getting up and taking a lap around the apartment periodically. The lack of sunlight can be offset by spending more time outside, but the pandemic has made that much harder than it needs to be, and winter won’t help matters much. However, taking a daily vitamin D supplement can give you the essential ingredient that exposure to sunlight provides, potentially helping you stave off the health problems that some with a vitamin D deficiency. It’s also a good idea of getting into the habit of reminding yourself to check your posture and to make sure you’re drinking enough water. As strange as it seems, the human mind is really good at tuning out the body’s more minor needs until they become major ones.
Staying Motivated
When you work from home, you get to enjoy the benefit of working in the environment of your choosing. However, this combined with the lack of direct oversight can make working from home a test of willpower like no other. However, again, there are a few minor steps that you can take to stay on target more easily. For starters, get dressed for work. Again, this might seem silly, but putting on a fresh, work appropriate outfit can trick your brain into going into work mode. Likewise, while sitting at a desk all day presents problems, that doesn’t mean you should lounge around in bed. Sitting at a desk, again, puts your brain in the right headspace to get some work done, and it promotes better posture, even if you still have to remind yourself to sit up straight every once in a while. The most important tip for staying motivated is that motivation isn’t the most helpful aspiration. Discipline is more appropriate, because discipline represents the ability to do what you have to do, even when you can’t muster the motivation to do it. Reducing the distractions around you or, worse, available to you can also help tremendously. As it turns out, the home that you’ve curated for yourself is filled to the brim with all kinds of things you like much more than your job.
