Leaving the home office can be a difficult transition for remote workers. Here’s what can help.
Working from home has many advantages. Natural boundries between work and home life is not one of them. Let’s look at 5 ways you can help turn off from a day working remotely.
1. Power Down Your Workstation
For me this means logging off the essential programs for my job, turning off my monitors and taking out my identity card. This allows me to mentally stop thinking about work.
The programs are not on, I am no longer logged on, and I can “leave” work now.
2. Put Peripheral Work Items Away
Put the headset in its place.
Clean up any peripheral wires to charge your phone and ipad.
Clear the desk and workspace of cups, bowls, plates or any other items that don’t belong there long term.
This ensures a clean desktop for when you come back in the morning, and allows for step 3.
3. Physically Clean The Desk And Workspace
One thing I liked about working in an actual office was that there was someone there who would do the house cleaning. I would come back to the trash being emptied, floors swept and mopped, and things wiped down.
With my home office, I am the housekeeping.
So I make it part of my routine in the evening when I am logging off to wipe down my desk, keyboard, mouse and chair with a cleaning wipe. Coming into a clean workspace in the morning feels better and allows less distraction when you are starting your day. I also take a minute to sweep or vacuum my workspace. If I went for a walk at lunch, some parts of outside may have followed me in and I want a clean workspace for the next day. About once a week I will mop the hardwood floors as well.
I then turn off all the lights and head for the door.
4. Exit Strategy
If the kids aren’t home, I will leave my workspace like I came in, through the back door and go for a quick walk around the block to “commute” home. If the kids are home, this can become more of a blurry exit blending work and homelife.
At the very least, I will do the above three steps and close the office door behind me as I leave signifying to myself the end of the workday.
5. Entering The Home
The final part of my Shutdown ritual is to engage with the kids and my spouse, and usually start dinner. Sometimes the next step is to shuttle the kids to an appointment or practice. Whatever it is- I am no longer engaged in work, and engaged in family life.
Try implementing these steps into your remote work life if you haven’t already. In my view, a shutdown ritual is very important to working from home and keeping a balance between home life and work life.
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