By | Rakshitha Acharya | www.jobsforher.com
Working from home has become a new career trend. For working women, the focus is not only on their work, but also on their responsibilities at home. It is now more than ever that women need to maintain effective work-life balance. Whether they are mothers or not, it can be seen that the working hours — in terms of office work, child care or household chores — have increased for women in general.
Amidst everything that is going on, it is very important to maintain emotional balance. Only when you are mentally healthy will you be able to cope with and also deliver effectively.
The current situation may vary for every working woman, some women might be enjoying the additional time they are getting to spend with their families, some women might be glad that they are able to upskill and learn new things, whereas, there are some women who might find the current situation very stressful. Regardless of enjoying it or not, certain practices will make the entire phase seem less daunting.
Here are some ways you can maintain your emotional balance while working from home:
1. Jot Down a Fixed and Doable Routine
Doing this will make things very easy for you. Because the entire situation is new, the exact way to go about with it is unknown, but a routine will clear most of your confusions. Having a routine will immediately reduce a certain amount of stress because you have a plan in mind and things are certain.
Make a routine and dedicate hours to all your tasks. When you know what you need to do at what time, it also becomes easy to let your family know that at this particular time you will be working and that they should not disturb you. With a routine, everyone knows what is happening at what time and your entire day will go by smoothly.
According to Dr. Rituparna Chakraborty, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Christ University, and Social Psychologist, your schedule is helpful in alleviating your stress. Sometimes, things may not go as per schedule, in situations like this, you should accept that such a thing is humanly possible. What you need to do is make sure it does not happen next time. Again, you should also remember to not stress over it and lose sleep. So, remember that you have to jot down a schedule but also not stress about sticking to it.
2. Dedicated ‘Me’ Time is a Must
Your routine for the day must have time dedicated to you. The only thing you have to do here is whatever interests you. All your hobbies come in to play here. This is the time you relax and devote yourself to recreational activities that you like to do.
For many women, this dedicated ‘me’ time may not be possible every day, in such situations try and have some ‘me’ time at least during the weekends. You will definitely see a change once you incorporate this.
Going back to the point Dr. Rituparna made, if you ever end up deviating from your routine and have pending work, make sure your ‘me’ time is not affected by that. To get done with work, never try to take away time from your ‘me’ time.
This ‘time for yourself’ is just a means for you to reboot yourself for the upcoming day or week, so make sure you definitely take some time just for yourself.
3. Get Adequate Sleep. Good Sleep = Good Day
Only good sleep will get you good results. To work effectively and deliver the best, you need to be in the right space of mind. Sleep does exactly this. It makes sure that you can rest and think better post-sleep.
No matter what, try and make sure you are getting adequate sleep according to your needs.
4. Learn. Learn. Learn.
This can be anything that you have always wanted to learn and explore. You can take up a course on something career-related, or lessons on cooking, painting, arts and crafts — literally anything you wish to learn.
When you learn something new, you end up diverting yourself from your mundane activities. You learn something new, become active, relieve your stress and also get the satisfaction of doing something worthwhile. This is a way to reduce stress and also benefit from it.
5. Indulge in Mental and Physical Activities
Activities, whether mental or physical, take your mind off of everything else that is going on in your day. You can indulge in some activities like yoga, dance, exercise, play some games, etc. Mind activities, meditation, listening to music, reading a book, solving puzzles are some of the many things that you can do.
Check out how other working women have been spending their time in the lockdown while working from home here.
These may not seem significant game-changers, but they will definitely help you manage your emotions when you are working from home.
Some other ways that you can maintain emotional balance are:
- Watch a simple yet entertaining movie
- Have meals together with your family
- Stay connected with your friends and family through social media and video conferencing
- Spend time with your pets
- Avoid false and misleading information about the Coronavirus pandemic
- Utilise the day to its fullest so that you go to bed without any stress
These are some things that’ll help your emotional wellbeing. In the end, you can still do only what is comfortable and suits your needs. The only thing to keep in mind is to have a healthy and stable emotional health.
Another thing you can do to reduce stress when it comes to your career is check out the jobs on JobsForHer. We have the top companies in India hiring women across industries.
Check out the jobs, apply to them and have one less problem to worry about!
Want to know which work-from-home jobs are the best for you? Check out our blog on 19 WFH jobs that are perfect for women like you here.
Republished with permission and originally published at www.jobsforher.com
