How Healthy is Remote Working?
Dan gets up every morning and looks at his beautiful grassy fields out the window. He watches the horses grazing and the lambs playing, brews a cup of coffee and sits at his desk. This is where things get a bit tricky, he sits and sits, but that impetus to start working doesn’t happen. Dan sits there staring at his computer, hoping that something will magically come to him and start work for the day. While Dan is staring at his computer, Sue is sipping coffee and pacing around her home office, trying not to hear the children squealing and laughing in the next-door apartment. Since the pandemic hit, Dan and Sue have worked from their home offices, initially as a preventative method of keeping everyone well, but now as a cost-cutting method by their employers.
The Dream to Work From Home Shattered
Dan and Sue are not alone in experiencing ‘blocks’ to their workflow. Blocks come in many forms, and if you don’t learn how to overcome them, they will work away at your mental well-being and self-esteem.
For many people, suddenly finding themselves working remotely seemed like a dream come true. The belief that working from home was a magic pill to freedom away from the bustle of a noisy shared office was finally coming true. Yet this newly found freedom comes with its own set of problems. You set up your desk, tidy it, perhaps put up a whiteboard, and a calendar, pens in cups and then nothing happens when the time comes to sit down to work.
Finding a Way Through
Now is the time to dig deep, muster your strength, and start. That is the easy part of working from home, all done. Okay, so it would be if you were working right now instead of staring at your monitor, stuck. Stuck has been around forever. Ask a writer what they fear most, and they will likely tell you it is writer’s block. Writer’s block is much like being stuck in a workflow blockage. Now that we can name it, how do we solve it? There are a few techniques that I have used in the past as a writer and as a lecturer, and what works for you may be different from what works for me; they make a good starting point.
The best way to solve being stuck is to find out why you are stuck. The most common reasons are –
- Fear of failure – Being afraid to start because you cannot fail if you don’t try.
- Feeling overwhelmed – The task is too big.
- Fear of success – If I succeed, then what?
- Lack of motivation – I don’t really want to…
- Distractions – Taking your mind away from your work
My favourite method is the Pomodoro technique, where you work to a timer and give yourself mental health breaks to refresh so you can continue working. The Pomodoro technique can help you overcome all of the above reasons for being stuck. You will learn how to move forward as you regain motivation, self-esteem and positivity. What is your favourite technique to get unstuck? Are you ready to neutralise your distractions?
