Self-care for Remote Workers

The routine of co-located work imposes a few benefits to workers – including a morning routine to get ready, a fixed lunch break, communal social time, daily built-in movement, and a transition away from “work mode”. In a remote environment, you want to make sure that you’re still taking care of yourself by setting aside time for yourself and building good habits. You will need to be more intentional about this when you work from home, but the bright side is that you can customize your routine as you want to fit your lifestyle and preferences to achieve a truly great work-life experience. Here’s how:

1. Incentivize yourself to go outside. You may already have pets or children that require regular outside time. If you don’t, find regular activities that get you out of your home such as in-person classes or daily walks (with or without friends). Make sure you’re  outside at least several times during your workweek!
2. Build your social circle. In a co-located company, there’s happy hour, social luncheons, and weekend invites to co-workers’ art shows. But in a remote workplace, even your best friend(s) at work probably don’t live close enough to hang out with regularly. So find recurring social opportunities – for example, attending martial arts classes, browsing local meetups, or meeting and hanging out with your neighbors. It takes time to build your community! But it’s important for your well-being, so commit to at least one social activity per week.
3. Take care of yourself! Don’t skip out on your morning routine – feel free to skip the makeup, but make sure to keep your showers, moisturizing routine, haircare, and fashion choices intact. 
4. Keep a regular eating schedule. Don’t just munch away whenever or stay hungry for a few hours during a meeting onslaught. Take time for food – whether it’s consistently taking a lunch break to make and eat food, or – if time is tight because you have too many meetings – prepare food ahead of time.
5. Keep moving regularly. It’s not healthy to sit down for 6-10 hours a day, so find a way to keep moving. This could be buying an under-the-desk treadmill or wobbleboard, or just setting timers to move every hour. Once you’ve built up healthy habits to move around regularly, slot in some time to get more moderate or intense exercise a few times a week. This is important – even with intermittent movement, sitting for so long isn’t good for you – so find an exercise routine you enjoy to counteract the toll office work takes.
6. Make sure you have an after-work routine. This could be turning off the computer and playing your favorite music to disconnect from your work problems. Doing it everyday will help your mind shift from “work mode” to “life mode” so that you’re not tempted to write a few more lines of code or ponder work problems at night. This is important for setting strong work life boundaries! 

Being a remote worker doesn’t mean you can afford to skimp on healthy routines! Take care of yourself, and you’ll reap the benefits when it comes to your happiness, healthiness, and productivity.