Work from Home Tips

Courtesy of the Corona Pandemic, many people now work from home. This cuts off the cost of transiting from home to work and back; and it literally adds hours to some people’s days: the hours spent in traffic every day.

At the start, you may find yourself spending double the normal time on your laptop. It’s so much fun just moving from the bed to work without having to change your clothes. You get to have breakfast, lunch and dinner all home-cooked without necessary taking any break. However, this is not sustainable.

To ensure we maintain good health, we need to pay attention to a few points:

1. Keep hydrated. Drink sufficient water to keep the body’s transport systems efficient.

2. Keep in touch. You may not need to keep in touch, but others may adjust badly to what they may choose to call incarceration. Find out how they are doing; you may need the favour returned some day.

3. Take breaks from social media. Bad news moves fast, but bad news is depressing. Once we used to look for news, now news looks for us. But it’s fine to run from news.

4. Invest in an ergonomic chair. It will make work easier and keep one’s back in “good repair.” It was okay to hunch over the laptop when you only needed to check out a few things. Working from home for 10 hours a day from now till whenever will have an impact on the back if one does not maintain good postures

5. Respect work hours. Staring at screens for too long still has an impact on the eyes. The family also needs to benefit from the extra hours in the day.

6. Take breaks from work. You could install a software like workrave to time your work and alert you to take breaks.

7. Ensure good ventilation. Indoor air can quickly get toxic without adequate ventilation, natural or mechanical.

8. Sunlight is a good source of vitamin D which helps in maintaining healthy bones. Where possible come into the sunlight in the open air or by your windows.

9. Exercise! You could walk or jog where possible. Worst case, get an exercise video and use it in your room.

10. Finally, remember to sleep! A good night’s rest is still invaluable.

These points will help us be productive on the job and still be useful to ourselves.