| First, understanding motivation and feelings is important. A good therapist can help you understand these things better and how they affect you. The working from home part I have a lot of experience with: 1. Rituals are an important factor in maintaining a psychological distance from your work and your personal life. Create a concrete, formulaic morning routine! Get dressed in certain clothes for work, wear different clothes in the evening. Listen to a particular genre of music at work that you never, ever listen to in your leisure time. The goal is to have your brain associate certain behaviours and feelings with particular stimuli. I don't have any papers to cite about the effectiveness of this practice but I've been working from home for years at a time and I can't imagine why I would ever go back to commuting to an office regularly. This has been more important for me when I don't have a dedicated home office! 2. Don't stress about being butt-in-seat. Go for a walk if you get in a rut. Take a 15 minute nap if you get sleepy in the afternoon. You'll get most of your work done during the day and often your subconscious brain needs time to work and it does that when you're not paying attention to things. Focus on getting good quality work time in. Across all industries, knowledge-workers are most productive when they are well-rested and are not stressed out. 3. Talk to your doctor about your sleep patterns if you're not getting enough. Sleep is key. 4. Do not forgo ergonomics. This goes whether in an office or at home but you need a good physical space that is suited to your body type and needs. Don't try to hunch over a laptop at your kitchen table for hours at a time. Get up, move around, try different postures and aim to get whatever funds you can access through your company, government, local network to get proper equipment. 5. Have a local network of folks you can meet up with on the regular. Pandemic times and all but even if you can meet on a corner for a little water-cooler chat it helps build a sense of place and belonging. Lots of people are working from home these days. In non-pandemic situations I'd go for coffee at a regular cafe we'd meet at and had a pass to a local co-working space. Being out in your community and seeing those familiar strangers along the way is a good thing and worth holding on to. |