Although remote working is something that most people desire, it’s not without its challenges. For many people, it’s a struggle to establish a new routine while working from home. Many others miss the social interaction that’s part of working with others and the daily change in one’s environment.
Another way that remote working can be challenging is when we’re dealing with the holidays. When you’re struggling to set a routine that delineates your work from your home life, holiday planning can become overwhelming.
In this post, we’ll look at ways to destress so that you can still enjoy your holiday while working from home. Let’s get started!
Create a structured routine
Remote working becomes enjoyable when you continue to create a clear time for work and a time for your personal life. The problem arises when these things bleed into each other. Here are steps you can take to make your daily life more structured.
List out your tasks and to-dos
Start by listing out things you have to do with regard to your work and holiday needs. Having a write-up of things like emails to be sent, documentation, recipes to plan, gifts to buy, etc. will give you a clear idea of what you should do.
Prioritize your tasks
There’s really no way to get everything done at once or to maintain a perfect work-life balance. It’s acceptable to discard some jobs in favor of others. When prioritizing your tasks, approach it from a values perspective.
Most people value family time and celebrating holidays, so it becomes necessary to stop taking more work than we have to and to ask for time off. Although this is hard to do, we’ll only know what we can get when we ask for it.
Prioritize what you’d like to do and arrange it in order from most to least important. You can also arrange your tasks so that you finish them in terms of urgency. If it takes 3 days to deliver a present, then mark the calendar 4 days before the time comes. You’ll feel organized and do things on time.
Time block
A major contributor to holiday stress and remote working strain is that we lose our focus as we work. The benefit of an office environment is that we’re in a zone for working and there are fewer distractions than in our homes.
The key is to quit multitasking. It’s tempting to have breakfast while working. But in the end, we don’t enjoy what we eat nor can we do quality work.
Create an excel sheet and block time slots for specific tasks and then do only those tasks. It’s also important to apply this when you’re doing holiday stuff too.
If you’re having an afternoon with your family, don’t check your phone. Be present and focus on the people who are with you. A short time where your attention is on the people you love is worth days where you’re together but distracted by work.
Don’t forget to enjoy the holidays
If you’ve followed the previous steps, then you’re already removing a large portion of holiday and work stress. The next step is to enjoy your holidays to the fullest by doing the following:
Commit to being present
When we’re off the clock, we tell ourselves that checking our emails or responding to a project comment will only take a few minutes – hardly any time at all. But when we do this, we’re not giving our brains the chance to fully relax. We have to switch from ‘play’ mode to ‘work’ mode and back again.
Make a personal commitment to not check on work tasks when you’re holidaying. When you do this for a few days, you’ll notice how much better you feel.
As you become more present, you’ll feel more energized and truly enjoy the holidays.
Practice self-care
Making sure that you plan self-care and family activities will help you make the best of your holidays and feel like you’ve spent your time well. Here are a few things you should do. Remember to not do anything work-related when you’re taking care of yourself.
Meditate: I find that meditation is a way to make your brain work out to make it more resilient and capable of withstanding emotional turbulence. Spending just 10-20 minutes a day following a simple meditation practice is enough to change your brain.
Involve your family in holiday tasks: If you need to shop, cook, or plan for the holidays, it would help and make it a meaningful experience to involve your family. Combine quality family time and tasks to create better experiences and to reduce stress.
Listen to music and talks: We have a number of sources for good music and information today. Spend time listening to podcasts or music and make sure that you curate what you’re listening to. Listening to inspirational content that helps you grow is a good way to spend your time off.
Conclusion
Remote working can be freeing and fun when done correctly. We’ve looked at several ways to beat holiday stress by taking control of our work life and personal life. It may be surprising, but the key to happiness and satisfaction lies in being organized. Follow the tips here and you should feel more upbeat in a very short period of time.