5 Ways to Reduce Stress When You Work From Home

Stress is a natural fallout of every activity. It works as a stimulator for humans to perform better at studies, work, sports, and business. However, excessive stress adversely impacts our physical and mental wellbeing. Left unchecked, excessive stress can cause a decline in productivity levels, lead to addictions and an overall decline in quality of life. Businesses and individuals are tackling stress in different ways. Large companies now offer telecommuting jobs that eliminate stressful commutes daily between home and workplace. Individuals find work as freelancers or launch own business to beat stress caused by commutes, interaction with seniors and colleagues as well as the uncertainty of employment. Working from home as a telecommuter, freelancer or small business owner also involves stress. However, flexible work hours enable you to reduce stress when working from home. There are several ways to reduce stress when you work from home.

Create a Timetable

Flexible work hours sometimes prove counterproductive when you work from home: your attention gets divided into various activities. Consequently, work suffers causing you to miss schedules and deadlines, invariably leading to stress. The best way to avoid lagging on work and inviting stress is to create a timetable. Decide your own office hours, intervals such as coffee breaks and lunch hour. You can create a timetable based on office timings. Also, include the time you would have spent on commuting between home and work. And finally, adhere to this timetable.

Fitness Activities

The commuting hours you include in the work-from-home timetable can be used for personal physical fitness. Since you will not be commuting, spend the time jogging, bicycling, performing Yoga or at a gym. Every fitness activity leaves you with a sense of wellbeing. It generates positive stress such as the urge to compete and better your skills that are also beneficial for boosting performance when you work from home. Since working from home involves lesser physical activity, you become prone to the sedentary lifestyle. Utilizing time you would otherwise have spent commuting on personal fitness activity reduces stress when you work from home.

Stress-Free Work

It is possible to reduce stress when you work from home by opting for simple yet lucrative freelance jobs and home-based business. For example, working as vocational skills assessor or providing training to assessors is a very highly paid freelance job. Excellent courses such as Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement can be taken online and then they lead to working online, what could be better? They are reasonably priced and certified assessors can offer services as freelancers or business. Those with excellent writing skills can consider working as a freelance content writer. Nowadays, there is a high demand for businesses, website owners, news and entertainment media and bloggers for superior quality content.

Stay off the Phone

Phone calls are a major waste of time and source of stress for anyone working from home. Smart-phones have made life easier for us. Yet, various messaging apps divert your attention from work with their frequent blips and buzzes. Stay off the phone to reduce stress when you work from home. Attend only those calls that are relevant to your work during the timetable you create. It is advisable to have separate phone numbers for work and personal use. Where possible, install an answering machine or use voice mailbox for calls to take messages that are not related to your work.

Assess Your Performance

Large companies in the US that permitted telecommute or work-from-home jobs were forced to recall employees to offices. The main reason: severe dip in performance levels of employees that worked from home. Flexible working hours often tempts people to postpone work in favor of personal, social engagements and domestic duties. Work gets relegated to back seat and is completed in hurry to meet schedules and deadlines. Poor quality will reflect in your work. To avoid this vicious circle, create an excel sheet where you can maintain records of work done daily. Going through this record alerts you when performance is spiraling downwards. It also helps identify areas where you lag in working from home. A daily performance record and its weekly review are essential to reduce stress when you work from home.

Other Ways to Reduce Stress

There are few other ways to reduce stress when you work from home. Venture outside your home or spend time looking outside a balcony during a coffee break. A short power-nap of 15 to 30 minutes during lunch hour works wonders to boost concentration and energy levels. But ensure you have light meals since heavy food makes causes drowsiness. Avoid watching TV shows other than news before you commence daily work: such shows generate emotions that can adversely impact work. However, spending a few minutes during work on your Facebook page can prove beneficial in reducing stress: it diverts attention briefly from mundane tasks and helps refresh the brain.

In Conclusion

Work from home is a rapidly growing trend worldwide. In the US, some 53 million or 34 percent of working population were freelancers in 2016.  By the year 2020, the figure is projected to rise to 43 percent. The situation in Europe and growing economies of Asia are somewhat similar. Telecommuter, freelance and other work from home jobs help you earn more. Working from home can prove very profitable provided you enforce self-discipline. Maintaining productivity and consistent quality are vital. They can be achieved by taking proper steps to reduce stress when you work from home.
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