Why we were not ready for remote work and how to help ourselves

If at the beginning of the pandemic almost all office workers were unanimously happy about the opportunity to work from home, then six months later everything was no longer so rosy. Suddenly it turned out that it’s more convenient in the office, and you can chat live with colleagues, play table football, and so on (this list can be continued for quite a long time). In this text, we will analyze why people were not ready to work or study from home, and we will tell you how to help yourself.

What does the research say: are burnout and remote work related?

Most Americans who work remotely don't want to return to the office even after the coronavirus crisis ends, according to a new national study from the Pew Research Center. But the numbers turned out to be not as serious as expected: only 54% of respondents liked remote work over the past year. The organization surveyed more than 10 thousand working Americans. Of these, only 20% worked remotely before the pandemic. Now there are 71% of them. They say the main difficulty during remote work is lack of motivation. More than a third say they now find it difficult to motivate themselves to fulfill their responsibilities. What follows is even more interesting. The World Health Organization officially recognized this year that burnout in remote work has become a major problem. In remote work, due to the lack of the right atmosphere and balance between work and personal life, some degree of burnout is observed in 80-90% of employees. And more than 30% experience complete burnout, according to a Gallup study.

Why is it difficult for us to work from home?

If you've been working or studying at home for several years, that is, even before the pandemic, you probably haven't had the problem of adapting to remote work. Otherwise, to one degree or another, you have felt how difficult it was to accustom yourself to working from home. And this is due to many factors. Psychotherapist Yulia Tkachenko says in more detail: The first factor is that we get used to the circumstances that structure our day : a trip to the office, coffee breaks, and so on. When we switch to working from home, we need to build it from scratch. When the usual way of existence breaks down, this is already stressful for a person, and there is also such a global change as quarantine. When we went to the office, we had at least a partial distinction between work and rest. When we stay at home, we ourselves need to make an effort to differentiate between work and rest. Naturally, this skill is not formed immediately, which means that until this happens, the work schedule “floats”. For example, I got up a little later, worked late and my schedule started to move later. The second factor is that many people’s home is not adapted for work , that is, there is no separate office where they could work quietly. Many live several people in a one-room apartment, where it is not possible to create even a separate workplace. Before quarantine, a certain part of people spent very little time at home. And accordingly, the requirements for the house could be minimal. When a person is constantly in a poorly equipped apartment or house, he faces discomfort. By the way, this often indicates that housing is unadapted to normal human needs. The third factor is social contacts . Humans are social creatures. For different professions, the social component of work has different weight. For example, for some people, working in an office and working at home does not make much difference in terms of communication. For another part of people, it is important to be able to talk with a colleague over coffee, it gives a person a feeling of inclusion. When such office communication disappears, a person may find that communication was one of the motivators to work. Then the person is left alone with those tasks that he may not really like. That is, the “goodies” of office communication disappear. I would say that burnout does not happen because of remote work, but because it happened suddenly. Suddenly I needed to spend a lot of time at home. Those who already had experience working remotely on their own initiative went through the adaptation stage. When people did not prepare for this, there were a lot of problems at once, but there was no opportunity to comfortably and gradually adapt to it.

How to help yourself if you are a remote worker?

Just as your work was structured in the office, it can be structured at home. Organize yourself quality sleep. Basic recommendations: go to bed and get up at the same time, buy earplugs, a sleep mask if you are disturbed by the light or neighbors behind the wall. No pleasant activity or communication will work if we don’t get enough sleep. Gradually discipline your work day. Just like with sleep, you should start and finish work at approximately the same time every day. You can introduce some kind of ritual to help you get into a working mood. For example, changing into office clothes. On the one hand, you organize yourself a time frame, on the other, a visual one. Try to leave the laptop on your desk at the end of the working day and not touch it again. Incorporate breaks from work into your schedule. Rest during breaks should be rest. At home during a break, there is a temptation to go do the laundry and wash the dishes. We seem to be switching gears, but fatigue still accumulates, because homework is not rest, it is work. It's better to talk to someone or take a walk outside. Incorporate physical activity into your schedule. For example, if we talk about working with depression, which can develop into burnout, then the very first step is behavioral activation. That is, a person should start moving more, and ideally have physical activity: running, training in the gym or at home, yoga, swimming or just warming up at home. The effect of exercise on our brain is similar to the effect of taking antidepressants. A person has more energy and feels better. Relax on the weekend. You can stay at home, or you can go out into nature or meet with friends. Of course, a variety of experiences will help you switch. But it is also important to understand that you can also relax at home, it’s just that many people don’t have the habit of just relaxing at home: this means doing something pleasant and not related to the result. Do you have your own ways to work effectively remotely? Share them in the comments ;)