How to survive the distance if it's for a long time

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, organizations began to transfer employees to remote locations. For how long is still unknown. According to favorable forecasts, the pandemic will decline in the summer, but no one can guarantee this. So it's best not to think of telecommuting as a temporary adventure and tune in to a marathon right away.

To survive the remoteness and remain a healthy, adequate person, you will have to take measures.

1. Set the boundaries of the working day

It seems that now you will have a lot of free time, because you no longer have to spend hours packing and traveling. And remote work itself is considered to be half-strength work: he did everything quickly and is free. And here the main disappointment awaits.

The work will take all of your time if you don't intentionally stop it.

This problem applies to both procrastinators and workaholics, it just manifests itself in different scenarios. Procrastinators run the risk of postponing the beginning of the working day until the victorious one. And then they hurriedly complete the tasks at night, because otherwise you can lose your place. With workaholics, everything is already clear: there is so much wonderful work in the world that needs to be redone. And you don't even have to get up from the table, it's very convenient. As a result, it turns out that you do not work from home, but live at work.

To avoid this, your workday must have a beginning and an end. If you find it difficult to follow a routine, come up with a ritual that will change your mood. For example, you can change into special work clothes and then take them off. This approach will help not only tune in to business, but also relax afterwards.

2. Set up your workplace

Another telecommuting myth is working out of bed. Besides the fact that it is not very convenient, there is another reason not to drag your laptop to bed. You need to differentiate the space for work and play, so that these two areas of your life exist separately. Leave the bed for more pleasant things, otherwise thoughts about projects will come to mind at the most inopportune moment.

3. Observe the daily routine in general

The dream of retirement is often associated with sleep before dinner. In fact, this will only work for those who work with a different time zone and live alone. Otherwise, you will not be able to maintain adequate communication with colleagues and family. And the regime is also needed for health. If you sleep during the day and stay awake at night, your body decreases production of the joy hormone serotonin. You become sadder and risk getting depressed.

Another pitfall is the lack of a diet. The refrigerator is just a stone's throw away, and snacks are the easiest way to find a good reason to take a break. As a result, you run the risk of constantly overeating and eating less healthy foods. Together with a decrease in physical activity, this can bring you extra pounds. So you also need to keep track of what and when you eat.

4. Get exercise

Activity when remote is reduced even without any quarantines and self-isolation - at least by the number of steps to and from work. For most of the day, you sit in one way or another and move mostly with your eyes and fingers. If you are not 15 years old, your body will soon remind you with various pains that you cannot do this with it.

Therefore, you need physical education. It is not necessary to set records, at least do the usual exercises and stretching.

5. Learn to work with emotions

During the day, we have a lot of contact with people and experience different emotions: we smile at the sight of a funny dressed child, we are angry with a person who can hardly weave in the crowd, we are sad, happy, and so on.

When you settled at home, it seems that now no one will piss you off. You will surround yourself with comfort and you will only rejoice. In fact, in isolation, there are far fewer microwires to experience different emotions. Therefore, they will accumulate, and eventually break through in the form of a disgusting emotional storm. Alas, most likely, it will be aggression and anger or resentment against household members - simply because they are a very convenient target.

To avoid this, you need emotion relief valves. For example, you can watch funny or touching videos on YouTube - the simplest ones, where a dog barks at a cabbage or retirees, holding hands, renew their vows of allegiance. Here they laughed, cried there, and now it became easier, and sometimes microcatarsis comes.

Sometimes it's worth connecting heavy artillery and watching a touching film over which you sob in three streams.

Again, physical education will come in handy, because exercise stimulates the production of the hormone of joy endorphin.

Finally, it is important to understand what kind of emotion you are experiencing and to whom it is directed. Let's say you are angry at the jerk from Facebook, but you spill everything out on a household member who has fallen under the hot hand. It may even seem to you that he is really to blame for something. But it will be much better if you begin to be aware of and articulate your feelings. For example, “I'm sorry, I'm annoyed because I'm mad at the Facebook jerk. Don't touch me for a while, because I can flare up from scratch."

6. Give yourself the opportunity to be alone

Even if all your household members leave for the day, this does not mean that you "had time to take a break from them, is it really not boring to be alone at home?" Nothing of the kind, you've worked. And one also needs to rest.

The rest of the family, by the way, also need loneliness.

7. Remember that the main thing in working from home is work

If you cleaned your home once a week while working in the office, and ordered food mainly with delivery, do not expect the situation to magically change. You cannot be effective if you cook borsch with one hand, repair the socket with the other, and solve work tasks with your left heel. Don't demand the impossible from yourself. Above all, do not allow others to demand.

Working from home differs from office work mainly only by those who bought the chair under you.

This is full-time work, full-time employment, maximum involvement. And even if you spent half a day in the office on social media and online shopping, you don't need to do this at home.

The remote situation can affect your future. If management sees that you are effective and do not need to stand over you with a stick, then you may be allowed to work remotely more often - if you wish. And if you are rather useless, the bosses may wonder if they can do without you. Moreover, if the pandemic drags on, many companies will suffer and the question of cuts will arise.

The sooner you stop treating remote work as a vacation sampler, the easier it will be for you to live.