Working from home could actually be quite relaxing. You wake up without the usual rush. First, you enjoy a leisurely breakfast. With a cup of coffee in hand, you sit down at your desk and check your first emails. But by the end of the day, your head is spinning from hours of video conferences and nonstop phone calls.
People working from home are surprised at how little they’ve accomplished, even though they’re handling work-related tasks late into the evening and don’t close their laptop until after midnight. In the long run, working from home can be extremely exhausting. Detlef Gerst from the “Future of Work” department at IG Metall has a few tips based on ergonomics.
Structure Your Workday
An organized and disciplined daily routine is extremely important. Fixed work hours and fixed breaks are essential. Your roommates, partner, or family should also be aware of this structure. Children need to know that they mustn’t disturb Mom or Dad at certain times. Colleagues and supervisors—whether they’re working in the office or from home—should also be informed of your personal work hours.
Checklists
To-do lists with important tasks that you work through in order of priority are helpful. Some researchers in the field of industrial and organizational psychology also recommend creating “not-to-do” lists. These lists include tasks that aren’t currently a priority and should be put on the back burner. You should break your work down into smaller chunks, focus on each one, and then move on to the next manageable task. This gives you a sense of what you’ve accomplished and what you can check off your list.
A Reasonable Workload
Everyone working from home should critically ask themselves what realistic goals can be achieved within a manageable timeframe. Setting expectations that are too high—and which cannot be met—is problematic. Stress and frustration are inevitable in such cases. It helps to communicate this with your employer and the works council. If the conditions are right and the task is suitable for working from home, there’s no difference in productivity.
The Basics of Breaks
Taking regular breaks throughout the workday is extremely important. Your eyes, neck, back, and tendons need relief. This is especially true when working at a computer. Hardware and software setups for working from home are often subpar. Employees work at the dining table, without a height-adjustable office chair or an ergonomic mouse. Many work on a laptop with a small screen instead of their usual 24-inch monitor. It stands to reason that the body is strained differently and quickly reacts with back pain, for example. You should therefore take a short break once an hour. In addition, there should be a break of about 15 minutes in the morning, a 30-minute break at noon, and another 15-minute break in the afternoon.
Making the Most of Your Breaks
Reading the newspaper or surfing the Internet during a work break does not provide relaxation. Such a break does not relieve the mind but is too similar to the actual work itself. A good break, as defined by ergonomics, is a “rewarding break.” It does not reduce the productivity of the workday as a whole but actually increases it. “Several shorter breaks lead to better overall rest and also to better work performance than one longer break,” says Detlef Gerst from the Future of Work department at IG Metall, citing scientific studies. During the longer lunch break, simply put on your jogging clothes, go for a half-hour run through the park, or do some calisthenics at home.
Close Contact with the Team
It’s important to communicate closely with supervisors and colleagues throughout the workday—whether by phone or email. After all, aside from your work results, these interactions are your only opportunity to make your presence felt. Those who talk frequently with colleagues develop innovative ideas almost incidentally through casual conversations. What counts is visibility and outward communication. To ensure this, be reachable during agreed-upon working hours, keep your cell phone on, and turn on email notifications.
Drawing the Line at the End of the Day
Keep a firm grip on the start and end of your workday: The greatest danger of working from home is the blurring of boundaries caused by constant availability. In the evening, you should consciously choose—and not wait too late—the moment when you finally put away your computer and smartphone and mentally turn your attention to other things. If you can’t draw a line at the end of the day, you’ll eventually impair your ability to recover and sleep less well. Over time, this has negative consequences for your well-being and health.
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