Many of us are heading into week three of working from home and I’m hearing a lot about how it is not as easy as it seems. Creating healthy boundaries and breaking up the day is essential to not feeling like a blob at the end of the workday, take it from someone who has been working from home (and loving it!) for 3 years.

Here are some of my tips for creating a healthy work-from-home lifestyle:

• Wake-up with enough time to have your morning routine before reporting to work. I like to feel like I have had time for myself before logging on and diving into emails and slack messages. It allows my brain to wake up and for me to proactively set my mood for the day instead of starting work and being reactive to whatever comes up on my screen if I were to roll out of bed and logon. 

• Create a schedule and stick to it. If you say you'll be online at 8:30 every day make sure you logon ready to work at that time. Communicate your schedule to your colleagues and try not to do work things outside of these hours. Setting good boundaries is key to not feeling like your home-life is being overrun by your work duties.

• Create a logon routine. I have a routine when I logon, much like you would when you walk into the office. I like to turn on my favorite morning podcasts (Up First, Today, Explained, and The Daily), check-in on slack, scan my emails for urgent items,  and then open up my calendar to plan my day and block off my schedule with meetings and tasks. Spending the first hour-ish of most days with this routine gets me out of "home mode" and into "work mode."

• Keep work-issued and personal devices separate, if possible. Having a digital boundary between work and home has helped me not think about work on my off-hours and just keep files where they need to be.

• Have a specific work area you report to, free of distractions and clutter. Best of it is well lit too if you’ll be doing video conferences. Going to the same spot each day, at least at the start of your day, will help make working from home feel more "official."

• Invest in good headphones (with a mic) if you are co-working from home or are working from a noisy environment. Noise is such an easy distraction that can be eliminated easily.

• Similarly, invest in a comfortable chair. It will make all the difference, I promise.

• Keep a bottle of water within reach. It is so easy for me to forget to drink water when I am home all day, but staying hydrated helps you not feel fatigued throughout the day and be more productive.

• Take regular breaks and try not to eat meals at your desk while you work. And what I find works well for me is having set breaks that I can look forward to a create a rhythm to my day.

• If you have a hard time focusing, try the Pomodoro Method. It's a great way to work in sprints and incentivize getting things done. Essentially you set a timer to work for 25 minutes and then take a 5-minute break. I use the Tide app's focus function to time myself.

• Turn off notifications (Slack, email, etc.) during non-working hours. This goes back to keeping a strict work schedule where possible. Even if you don't respond to incoming messages, but you get the notifications, you will have work on your mind when you're in your off-hours creating dormant anxiety.

• Have an end of day transition routine for when you log off. I like to go for a walk then take a shower before starting my evening at home. These activities just break the day up and let my mind ease out of the workday.

I hope some of these suggestions are helpful in making your work-from-home life more enjoyable!