Before many office workers made the transition to a life of telecommuting, the idea of doing their job from the comforts of home, avoiding crowded freeways, subways, or trains, and wearing sweatpants all day sounded like a pipe dream. But those who have been working remotely for a while know that the lifestyle isn’t always as stress-free and comfortable as it may first appear. Feelings of isolation, distractions from household members, and so-called “Zoom fatigue” are real challenges that need to be addressed daily in order to function efficiently in the work-from-home environment. Zoom fatigue can be defined as the feelings of tiredness, anxiety, or burnout people suffer when overusing virtual communication media such as Zoom and Skype. Once again, dry erase walls to the rescue…
Following the simple steps below can help you to overcome the problem of Zoom fatigue, along with the daily household distractions and sense of isolation or loneliness you may be experiencing while doing remote work, so that you can feel more relaxed and centered and function more effectively in the home office setting.
Set the stage each day by arranging a set of items that tell you “It’s time to work”
If you’re using just one space for doing remote work in your house or apartment, or if you need to use more than one area, set up the same props, such as a mouse pad, an uplifting photo, or an inspiring quote in each location every day. Having the identical type of set-up at each workstation lets your brain know that it’s time to work when you get there, and the visual prompt of repeatedly going back to the same arranged workspace or spaces will give you a feeling of empowerment and confidence to begin tackling your job duties for an extended time. In this way, you’ll make your efficiency portable by bringing the skills of clear, simple organization and logical workflow that you acquired in the workplace into your home office environment.
Use a dry erase painted surface as a “visual anchor”
You can also make use of a “visual anchor” located in an area near your computer or laptop, such as a dry erase painted wall, desktop, tabletop, or cabinet. On it, you may list three or more of the most crucial tasks you want to concentrate on during each working day. Using a Dry Erase Painted surface, which is low-tech, uncomplicated, and easy to interact with, will help to guide you forward more smoothly than interacting with complex tech-based activity lists or schedules on a desk computer or laptop. Having your dry erase surface always close at hand is like having the most kindly boss you’ve ever worked with, as it will gently and continually direct you to use your time for tasks that are most important to your job on any given day.
Write and draw on your dry erase surface as much as possible
Writing and drawing by hand on a dry erase painted surface is also helpful in enhancing your mental acuity and clarity. In terms of brain stimulation and overall benefits to the mind, writing by hand is the ideal way to form words and numbers. No other language-communication technique is as potent a mental stimulant as handwriting. When you type notes on a laptop, desktop, or tablet during virtual meetings or schedule work activities or video conferences on an electronic calendar, the process may seem easier than writing the same items out by hand, but the learning and cognitive effects are much less beneficial. This is just one of the many advantages of using dry erase painted surfaces as your essential business and personal communication tools in the home office setting.
Take breaks during the workday based on your inner cues
The importance of taking time outs throughout the workday is widely accepted by psychologists, time-management experts, and health care professionals, but knowing when and how long to pause for a while may be hard to pinpoint. For example, some business training and consulting companies suggest following the body’s circadian rhythm and taking a rest every 90 minutes, while others recommend breaking about every 20 minutes. However, such regularly timed breaks don’t always fit in with everyone’s work schedule, so it’s better to take a more intuitive approach and pay attention to your personal inner cues.
When you feel like you’re getting overwhelmed with phone calls, when you feel your body tingling from adrenaline, when you’re craving a snack, feel you need to check your email, or desire any other way to rest, take a strategically timed pause. Such occasions are other times when a dry erase painted wall can come in handy, as you can back off from your work duties and begin to sketch or doodle for a while on the wall at a leisurely pace, thus helping you relax and recharge.
Do “soft work” periodically to enhance your ability to do “hard work”
Research has shown that so-called “soft work” such as casual doodling and sketching during the workday can alleviate stress and improve cognitive acuity for more formal or “hard” work activities such as conducting virtual meetings, doing calculations, freelance writing, or creating design layouts. Soft work is not what you’re directly paid to do each day, and it’s not what you’re periodically evaluated on. By contrast, “hard work” includes activities such as reading reports, doing research, calling clients, transcribing phone calls, and working with Excel or PowerPoint. For some, it might consist of supervising employees or reading and writing business-related emails.
During the past year and a half, countless white-collar workers around the world have come to realize that they can do such hard work from the comforts of home just as effectively as in the traditional office setting, and perhaps even more so, because their coworkers aren’t distracting them and they’re free of office noise and the need to attend frequent in-person meetings. Supplement your hard work with occasional doodling or sketching on your dry erase wall and feel the difference in your productivity.
Create a clocking-out routine that you follow every day
Productivity can also be enhanced by compartmentalizing your job activities, an essential habit of work-from-home team members. Any time you can place items in boxes, either literally or figuratively, it helps you to maintain your focus. Checking email at a regular time each day is a form of compartmentalization. The dry erase painted surface that serves as your visual anchor is another. You can make use of the concept of compartmentalization to call an end to your workday visually by opening a physical compartment, like a desk drawer or file cabinet, and putting all of your job-related articles inside. Tuck them into their compartment and clock out for the day. It’s not always easy to clock out in the virtual environment of our home office, where you can and at times do feel that you should be continually on hand to work, but try to do so anyway.
Another effective method for cutting off work activities for the evening is to announce it either vocally or in writing, which is like making a verbal pledge to yourself. When you’re ready for the workday to end, stand in front of your family members or a roommate and say, “I’m done working for the day.” You can also write the same message in large letters on your dry erase wall and look at the words for a while, so the idea sinks into your head. This is an effective approach if you live alone; otherwise, you can call or text a friend and give the same message, or just say out loud for only yourself to hear, “I’m finished for the day.”