Tips to Avoid Work From Home Burnout

With more additional people working from home than ever, burnout has become a problem for employers. While office burnout has been much discussed over the last few decades, much less attention has been paid to those working remotely. The problem is that home burnout is as much of an issue for employers.

Whether you’re working from home or you’re an employer looking for advice to help your remote teams, knowing how to avoid work from home burnout has never been more critical. Follow these tips to ensure that productivity levels remain consistent and that you don’t suffer from burnout that can affect anyone.

1. Get Up and Head Out

Taking breaks is one of the easiest yet most effective ways to ensure that you don’t get hit by work from home burnout. Breaks can be short; even taking five minutes to go for a stroll can be enough to give your brain a break from your responsibilities. What you do during those breaks can make all the difference, though.

One of the best ways to keep burnout at bay is to take breaks that get you outside and into nature. There’s a reason writers and artists head out when they need inspiration! The fresh air, the peace and calm of those natural spaces, and even the sunlight can all help you refresh, reenergize, and ensure that you head back to your desk full of motivation.

2. Go Green

Creating a more amenable workspace, even at home, doesn’t have to be a significant change, and simple adjustments can help you avoid burnout and stress. Adding some greenery to your workspace is always a good idea, but don’t panic if your fingers are every color but green.

There are plenty of office plants that take very little looking after, and the benefits are well known. From helping to reduce stress and illness to lowering noise levels and improving creativity, there have always been benefits to having plants in the office. They are also an excellent excuse to take another break when they need watering.

3. Reward Yourself

When we have goals, we focus more on how to achieve them. That’s a lesson well worth remembering when you’re working from home. If you don’t motivate yourself with some reward system, the only thing you have to look forward to is the end of the working day, and that’s a great way to accelerate burnout.

If you’ve got ten tasks that need to be finished by a set time, have a reward in mind for when you complete that workload. Choose your tips accordingly, and ensure that they’re something you want. Don’t reward yourself with an hour in the gym after you’ve sent off all of your emails if you don’t enjoy the gym. Tailor your rewards to what you want, and work won’t be as stressful.

4. Stop Working

When your working day is done or the weekend rolls around, you must switch off from work entirely. Don’t have work email notifications on your phone, don’t check your Slack work channels, and don’t even think about getting extra paperwork done.

Without the space you need to recover from work stress, burnout will come on very quickly. While some people can cope with that always-on-always-working approach, it’s scarce. For most of us, taking the time to relax, recover, and spend time with others is all we need to build up our energy levels. That’ll see you ready to launch into action on Monday morning.

5. Think Health and Wellness

No employer wants their team members to burn out, which is why the concept of health and wellness has become such an extensive conversation in the business world of the last decade. Whatever your health levels or thoughts about exercise, little will help beat burnout quicker than a healthier lifestyle.

That doesn’t have to mean signing up to your local gym or eating salads for every meal. Stick to some of the basics at first. Drink plenty of water, go for a brisk walk, and make sure that you get a good night’s sleep every single night. Just these three changes alone can have a massive effect on your health levels, and that’s good news for your mental health too.

6. Get Dressed

The option to work in your pajamas and dressing gown all day is highly tempting. After all, if you don’t have any Zoom meetings to attend, what does it matter how you dress? The problem is that if you drag yourself out of bed and immediately fire up the laptop, you’re going to blur the line between work and relaxation.

So get up, get dressed in your work clothes, and you’ll instantly feel much more professional. That alone is going to help motivate you. The fact that you can draw a line under your workday and get changed immediately into your hanging-out clothes once you’ve done everything only adds another benefit to getting adequately dressed every day.

7. Avoid Burnout when Working From Home

Burnout can deliver itself in a combination of ways. Exhaustion is a common symptom that leads to a lack of motivation and a rise in irritability. Anxiety is commonly reported, and there are even physical symptoms such as headaches, insomnia, or stomach pains.

Ensure that you don’t let burnout affect your life by taking steps now to avoid it creeping in. Follow the above tips, and you could be working faster, happier, and with more inspiration than you ever did in the commutable office.