Keeping the motivation to work can be hard already. Keeping the motivation to work during a pandemic can sometimes feel impossible. Between Zoom fatigue, finding time to forget about the craziness happening in the world and possibly caring for kids or relatives, our productivity can easily tank.
But there are ways to stay motivated while working from home; ways to stay relaxed so that you don't burn out and fall behind.
Yoga and meditation
Yoga is excellent for relaxation. There are plenty of YouTube channels that men and women can visit to do quick routines between meetings or at the end of the day. Lots of yoga instructors also curate routines so that they help promote relaxation and deep breathing.
Some instructors also put together routines that you can do in bed or at your desk; brief routines that exercise the shoulders, back and arms, meant to give you a pick-me-up for the rest of the day or help you wind down.
Scheduled breaks
When you're in an office, it's easy to take breaks. Trip to the restroom, visiting co-workers at their desk, grabbing snacks from the vending machine... those are all little ways we would break up the day. When you're at home, those little interruptions don't help take you out of the work mindset as much.
This is where scheduled breaks come into play. Taking ten or fifteen minutes each hour or two would do wonders. You can take this time to watch some videos, do some exercise, enjoy the weather, or really anything that helps you relax for a while. Be sure not think about work as you're relaxing, that's a common mistake we all make!
Background noise
Some kind of background noise can help keep you from getting too overwhelmed by work. Whether it's music, a TV show or a podcast, anything that keeps you working in complete silence will save you from getting too caught up in your job that it's hard to stop for the day. It's important to have a balance even as you're working; working from home makes it much easier for your work life to bleed into your personal life, so you have to work to keep yourself from slipping to deeply into a work mindset.
Staying motivated after months of working from home can be hard, but it can be done! So long as you strike that healthy balance, you're sure to avoid burnout.
