7 Ways to Mix Up Your WFH Routine

You never thought it would happen, but work life can be less engaging without all that office chit chat. You know it's getting dire when you even miss the resident millennial balking 'OMG IT'S FRI-YAY' every single week. How do you even know it's time for lunch without John frothing his milk in an excruciatingly loud manner?

You may even be missing those meetings with real life people, even if they seemed somewhat pointless when an email would've sufficed? What do you eat for lunch now that you can't grab a Poke Bowl next door? Here are some tips and tricks to enjoy this WFH situation you've been plunged into.

1. Nature - Find the rhythm

WFH may cause you to have to vary your normal routines or work times. Turn a challenge into an opportunity and create new routines for yourself.

Try getting up to watch the sunrise every day, it's a beautiful time of the day that often passes by with most of us still glued to our pillows. Couple this with some exercise or just thinking time with a morning coffee; it's a great way to start the day and you'll get a lot more done being up early.

On the other side of the day is dusk, another often overlooked time that can stimulate the senses, leaving you relaxed and more in tune with nature. If you can't free up those spots, find some time in your day to get outside (or simply open a window) and absorb what's around you. What trees or plants can you see, what sounds can you hear, what thoughts or ideas does nature give you? This can take as little as 5 mins a day and will help free the mind from the possible repetition of a WFH situation, try it at different times of the day and note the subtle changes.

Use nature as an escape; however brief the time connected to it may be. It's beautiful when you look around and it grounds you and your mind so you can make your WFH experience healthier and happier.

Photo credit: Flickr

2. Exercise - Keep it varied and challenging

Treat these times as a golden opportunity to hit that fitness regime you've always dreamed about, but never found the time to start, or let alone complete. Regular physical activity improves your muscle strength and boosts endurance, it also delivers oxygen and nutrients to tissues, giving you more energy throughout the day. Exercise releases endorphins in the body, which make you feel great afterwards. It's a perfect scenario to help with projects arriving on your home desk in the coming weeks.

A great place to start is focusing on the neck, shoulders and back, this will help alleviate stress on the body caused by working from home, your lounge isn't probably as ergonomically designed as your normal office space. You can also check out these fitness work outs we have ready to go.

Things that help to start an exercise routine:

• Set time aside for exercise activity every day
• Make sure to leave your home workspace for the activity (even just the room)
• Always warm up and down before and after with some stretching
• Try and get outside as much as possible - connecting with nature adds to the overall experience (your neighbourhood or garden is fine)
• Keep progressing - challenge yourself to more km's, reps, time or weight
• Music - it's a great way to help escape and it can be highly motivating
• Variation - walking, HITT, yoga or biking riding. Try and vary your activities as much as possible
• Routes - if venturing out take a new route every time, you'll be surprised how much you learn about your neighbourhood
• Specific areas - target different areas of your body each day, the overall results will be beneficial and it helps keep you motivated
• Targets - set some short and long term targets to achieve, these can be as small as 2 more press-ups each day or to eventually run a marathon, you choose!

Credit: Popsugar

3. Make Lunch Great Again

Don't forget to step away from your home office during lunch, we have all had many lack-lustre dining experiences at our desk, why not step away from your workspace and dine al fresco, instead of al-desko!

Take lunch on tour with you, into the garden, your neighbourhood park or even a nice sunny nook in your home. It's important to break up the monotony of your work day and move around. If you're able to, getting outside and having proper breaks will help you feel more rested and fulfilled at the end of the day.

If you have others in your "bubble" you could arrange to have a picnic lunch together. Getting some vitamin D and having a chinwag is fabulous for your mental health. If you're isolating solo, you could Facetime a loved one while you're enjoying your nutritious lunch outside. If you have kids in the home, you could enlist them to set up a Teddy Bears picnic. This project will not only give them something to keep entertained, but it might also help keep them quiet and preoccupied outside, while you wrap up that last conference call before lunch. Bon Appetite!

4. Education - time for new learning

Think about all the things you always wanted to research, delve deeper into, find solutions for, or just know how something works. Now is the time. Break up your day with some recreational education study breaks. If you are locked into set WFH timings make a break at the end of the day, evening, or first thing in the morning for some inspirational learning time. Educating yourself beyond your day to day WFH home duties will only increase your value, and you'll have something new to talk about when back at work.

Ideas for recreational learning could include:

• New place to visit, the travel ban won't last forever, be studied up on your next destination whether it local or abroad
• Skills - upgrade your work skills with an online course or research a relative work topic
• Music - listen to all that music you've never had the time to, or explore new genre's. Music can lift your mood or relax you, plus everything in-between.
• Documentaries, series & movies - so many great doco's to watch, start a list, mix it up and get watching. Podcasts are great for learning too.
• History - not clear what actually happened, where and when? Find out
• Space - it's the final frontier and possibly the future destination of our species
• Psychology - learn some of the basics, it may even help with your next video conference
• Te Reo - use the time around the house to learn some basics, post it notes around the house can be an easy way of learning everyday objects
• Physiology - learn what's going on in your body, you only have one. Understand it more so you can take better care of it
• How things work - pick something you've always wanted to understand and master it's internal workings

5. Tomato Time - Try it

When you're not at your usual place of work or routines are adjusted to fit the new isolation model, the old stimuli, meeting schedules and office movements that would usually connote a time to switch tasks, or make a coffee, are not there. It may be tempting to have a chat with your kitchen tap in lieu of that riveting water cooler banter, but some veterans of WFH swear by a technique that can help you divide your day and budget your time wisely.

You may have heard of the "Pomodoro Technique;" it was first conceived in the 1980's by a man called Francesco Cirillo and its name was coined thanks to the tomato shaped timer that he used when developing the technique. The Pomodoro Technique is based on a philosophy of daily task setting which are then achieved in small increments of time with regular breaks. It's said that this method allows one to have maximum focus and creative freshness throughout the day, which allows people to complete projects faster with less mental fatigue. This may or may not be the right method for you but it may just be what you need to arrange your day a little differently whilst taking stock of your own productivity, time management and perhaps even inspire you to find a new work philosophy that's bespoke to you.

We found the Tomato Timer was a handy aid for this technique but there are a number of other platforms that adhere to the same basic principle. But you don't need any of that technology to help you organise your day. All you need to follow these basic steps is some pen & paper:

• Decide on the task to be done
• Set the pomodoro timer (traditionally to 25 minutes)
• Work on the task
• End work when the timer rings and put a checkmark on a piece of paper.
• If you have fewer than four checkmarks, take a short break (3-5 minutes), then go to step 2
• After four pomodoros, take a longer break (15-30 minutes), reset your checkmark count to zero, then go to step 1

Photo credit: Entrepreneur

6. Mix It Up - A change is good

If like many of us you're finding yourself in a lot of video conference calls - you could jazz things up little and have a fancy dress meeting, this will give everyone a light hearted conversation starter and a bit of a laugh. You could kick off the meeting festivities with a hat party or black tie Tuesday, the options are endless.

Another way to connect with those outside your work community and provide a fresh take on things is to have a "guest speaker" on your Zoom calls. Reach out to your networks and bring in the speaker to talk about how their business is coping / has been affected by this pandemic and share some insights amongst the collective group.

It's important to demarcate your day with work and play - although the two are not always mutually exclusive. When your working day is over it's important to have that tools down moment and "leave the office", even if it is only metaphorically. Know when to call it a day! If you don't have the luxury of a separate office, putting your computer in a bag or in a room away from your living space can help you ease into your evening and file away any work problems. We highly recommend going for a quick stroll around the block to reset and get your brain out of work mode.

7. Connect - Just make it happen

Make a list of all the people that in the back of your mind you always wish you kept in touch with more, old friends, estranged family members and old acquaintances is a good start. Complement this with a list of work contacts that you want to connect with, do some new networking, you never know where it might end up.

Knock at least one person off your list each day, mix it up with the various connection platforms available. In these times you'll find people are more willing to talk and share their experiences and stories. Connecting with people outside of your immediate social and work bubble is a rewarding way to spend a few minutes each day, you'll be surprised how happy they are to hear from you, even if it has been a while.

Photo credit: Apple.com