5 Work-Life Balance Tips For Working From Home

By Devin Renspie

In times where much of our work and life is forced to occur in the same place, a.k.a, at home, it’s extra important to make sure your work/life balance is maintainable for you. While ultimately everyone's healthy balance will look different, here are a few tips to get you thinking about how you can make this new norm work for you.

Create a separate working space

If you’re working from home, you need a dedicated space to work from. If you have a spare room, say hello to your new office! If not, no worries! Designating a spot with a comfortable chair and enough counterspace that you can center your workspace around works, too. Having a separate space for work is critical in creating a productive work environment at home. Moreover, this separate space makes it easier to switch between work and personal time.

Make transitions to and from work

When working away from home, your commute acts as a buffer between your work time and your personal time, but when you’re working from home, you have to develop this buffer on your own. To do this, think about what your usual commute entails. Maybe that means listening to music or a podcast to mimic what you do on your drive to work, or maybe that involves walking around the block to mimic your walk to work. Whatever you choose to incorporate, make sure that you’re consistent in the amount of time you spend doing your new routine. It’s best if your evening routine is your morning routine in reverse, but ultimately, stick with what works best for you.

Find time to socialize and take breaks

Working from home can be isolating and draining, especially if you’re used to breaking up your workday with the casual interactions that working at an office can bring. To combat the loneliness that working from home can bring, make an effort to reach out to your colleagues a few times a day. At Olivia Management, we have a #random Slack channel where we can talk about anything non-work related, which helps to encourage these casual chats that would usually occur in the office.

Taking regular breaks can also help if working remotely has been leaving you drained. The Pomodoro Technique recommends taking short, 3-5 minute breaks between 25 minute work sessions. After four pomodoros, take a longer, 15-30 minute break before beginning the cycle again. Even if you just use this time to get up and stretch, taking breaks can help your motivation last throughout the day and boost your time management and organization skills.

Disconnect outside of work hours

In the spirit of keeping routines around your work, make sure you stick to your set work hours. You might be tempted to work later into the night than you normally do since you no longer have a commute to worry about, but doing this is a slippery slope to having work take over your entire day. To further separate your work from your personal life, consider disconnecting from the channels you use to communicate for work in the evenings and on the weekends. For me, this means putting my Slack on do not disturb outside of my work hours.

Plan out your down time

Even with the above tips, you might still struggle with separating your work life from your personal life when working from home. That’s why it helps to plan out your downtime so that you’re more motivated to get off of work on time. Maybe that looks like going for an after-work walk, catching an episode of a show you like, going to the grocery store, cooking dinner, or FaceTiming with friends or family. Plan to do something that takes your mind off of work for a while. Bonus points if that something involves a change of scenery, since it’s easy to forget that there’s a whole world out there!

Work! Life! Balance! Oh My!

Written By Kate Cosentino

Work life balance-the hardest balance to strike. There’s never enough time to live all of the lives I want to live, much less to check every box on my list or else I’d be a famous singer/songwriter, professional roller skate dancer, polyglot with the cleanest house you’ve ever seen. But alas— I’m only a fraction of that dream human being. In elementary school, I remember reading The BFG by Roald Dahl and learning that his mythical “Big friendly giants” did not have to sleep-saying, why sleep when you can live double the amount of time? That thought has always stuck with me. Life is so amazing and I don’t want to waste a second! It’s no wonder I’m a a three on the enneagram and I feel every single second cramming each one as full of as much productivity as possible. With that being said, I am constantly studying ways to combat my need to fit everything into the 7 days a week. Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is the most recent book to change my life layout.

Covey divides his schedule into quadrants to be re-evaluated weekly (or however regularly you want).

Image made by Kate Cosentino on Canva

As you can see in the image above, Quadrant 1 represents things that are both urgent and important. Examples include: deadline driven projects, urgent occurrences (like a car crash or leak in a pipe). Quadrant 2 are things that are important but not urgent. These are the things I typically care the most about like making music and working on my passion projects and career. Quadrant 3 is urgent but not important like maybe a call you have to answer or upkeep tasks you have to do. Finally Quadrant 4 are things not as urgent and not important so your Netflix and your Fortnite. Below is what a lot of my quadrant activities look like:

For me, Quad 1 & 3 are ever present so I use my planner to make sure I prioritize items in Quad 2. For example, I block out an hour or so daily for physical activity/exercise. That is not an urgent task but it is important to my mental and physical health. I also have to block out time where I’m working on me and my music because no one will give me that time but myself. Covey also suggests blocking in a healthy amount of leisure time from Quad 4. I think that is important or else you risk burning out and living in Quad 4. If I work too hard without a break I will get lost in movies and TV shows because I have no more brain power to keep going. If I schedule in fun nights with friends or time for my favorite show during the week, I get a healthy break that makes me more motivated to keep working.

I personally love using a physical planner with color coded pens and highlighters. I assign each quadrant a color. Quad 1 is pink, Quad 2 is purple, Quad 3 is blue and Quad 4 is yellow. It helps me visually how much time I am spending on each activity. This works well in Google Calendar where you can color coat activities as well-with the added bonus of a notification to your phone or two your email. Personally I love having the visual of these planners and blocking off time so that I don’t get too far behind on any of my goals—especially if they’re not urgent. And it makes sure I’m balancing work and play!

If you want a physical planner yourself I would recommend the Happy Planner of the Passion Planner. They come in varying sizes and layouts. I love the fun stickers and designs! Happy planning!

Maintaining your Work/Life Balance

By Emma Martin

Being at home for the past six months has been interesting and quite an adjustment. Balancing work, personal life, and schoolwork has become harder than ever, thanks to the pandemic, because we have had to move our offices into our houses, meaning we can’t leave our work at the office since the office is now the living room. For me, it has taken some time to figure out how to balance my classes, an internship, and my personal life while stuck at home, away from campus and the office, but I have found ways to enjoy my time at home.

Take breaks:

I am sure you have heard it a million times before, but taking a break from work during the day can help you balance your work life and personal life. Consider setting aside time during the day to go on a walk, go for a drive, or call a family member or friend. After the break, you’ll feel much more refreshed and productive since you will have had a change of scenery and a chance to step a way for a minute.

Time Management/Routine:

Something that I have gotten really good at during quarantine is time management. Between summer classes and an internship, I have had to manage time differently than before. Unlike previous semesters, I did not have a set schedule for when classes met, but I was fortunate to have a set schedule for when I was interning, which helped me set aside other times when I needed to be working on my summer classes. I set my weekdays so that I worked on schoolwork and interned on Monday-Thursday which meant that I could have Friday and the weekends to relax. Having a routine has been helpful when trying to make time for myself.

Talk to friends and family:

I have always found it nice to talk to friends and family about what they are up to. In times like these, it can be hard to connect with others since we can’t physically be together, but a phone call or FaceTime call can take your mind off of work for a while. If you can’t talk on the phone, shoot them a text to let them know that you’re thinking of them!

Turn off your phone:

This is something that I need to get better at doing since I use my phone all the time. Before I go to bed, I turn it on Airplane mode so that I don’t get any notifications until my alarm goes off and I am ready to start my workday. Something I have learned while interning is to turn off notifications after you are done with the workday. Constant emails and notifications can be overwhelming when you are trying to have time for yourself. It’s easy for me to get wrapped up in what is happening after hours when I have notifications on.