Working remote? Use these 6 tips to create a virtual commute

 

When you drive to work every day, there are 2 parts of your day that are always consistent, your commute. During this time you are all to yourself(unless you ride share). The commute creates a time allowing you to transition from home life to work and from work back to home life. With the changes to how we work brought about by the pandemic, more people than ever are working from home. That has changed many people's relationships with work. When I first began working from home full time I found it tough to draw a line between work and home. Suddenly I was at the office all day, everyday. It's important to be able to connect and disconnect from work each day. This is both for your mental health and for your productivity, so you don't become burned out. One of the best ways I've found to do this is through a virtual commute.

A virtual commute is time that you set aside each work day, to allow you to mentally prepare for and to mentally disconnect from work. During your normal physical commute you are moving either in a car or public transportation and you can't work. You need to recreate that with a virtual commute by blocking out time at the beginning and end of each day where you'll eliminate all work and focus instead on you.  Here are some simple steps I use to bring the commute back into my day. 

Block Time

I'm a big fan of intentionally blocking out time on my calendar. Every day I block out an hour for lunch and at least two hours of focus time, so I can catch up on projects, email or whatever I need to get out of the way. When I began to burn out and feel like work was never ending I started blocking out 1 hour before and after work as virtual commute time and had a calendar invite list me as not available as well to reinforce that I am not available during this time. 

Take Stock

I took a look at the things I normally did during my hour drive to and from work each day. I typically listened to podcasts, music or chatted with a friend. I realized that I looked forward to these things every day because they had become a habit and I was missing them. After realizing that I was missing these things I started doing them every day at the beginning and end of the workday again. This brought back routine and gave me something to look forward to each day that helped me mentally prepare to start work and something that I was excited to stop work for.

Be Consistent

Habit building matters. Doing something repeatedly will form a habit and help you to be consistent. However, it's easy to get out of routine. Think about all the New Year's resolutions that you start and stop.  Remember that this virtual commute is for your own well being and be diligent every day about starting and ending your day with it. Very quickly you will move from forcing yourself to do it to looking forward to it.

Get Outside

Your commute now may be 30 seconds walking from your bedroom to your desk, instead of the 40 minutes you used to spend driving in. One thing that was consistent was that you were driving in, outside your house. Don't let the work from home environment take that from you. Each morning and night, step out the door and try spending your virtual commute outside. Get some fresh air and sunshine. Not only will this help with your mental break, but it is also healthy to get that fresh air, let the sunshine help you make vitamin D and just get some plain old fashioned exercise. 

Get Serious About Disconnecting

Be serious about disconnecting, because that's the point of the virtual commute. When 5PM rolls around  you must stop work on projects and take calls from coworkers(well to talk about work anyway). The time that you've scheduled to physically leave home and walk out the door is a time for you and your health. Remember that you must always pay yourself first. You must always consider your health and well being above that of your company. You're no good to yourself, your family or your job if you are constantly anxious, burned out and exhausted. 

Use Technology to Help

Each day at the end of the workday, I not only mentally disconnect, but I physically disconnect my technology as well. Both my work laptop and personal laptop are on the same desk, but I have them connected to a docking station with a USB C cable. At the end of the work day, right at 5, I physically move that cable from my work to personal computer. The monitor goes back and work disappears and my personal home screen appears. This, for me at least, creates a mental process where I can actually see work going away.  I also have my phone setup to make sure I don't get notifications once I'm off. In my Slack settings, I've scheduled notifications to only deliver during work hours. I've also turned notifications for email off in Outlook completely. Don't worry though, those emails that came in super early or super late are still there during working hours and I get to them then and you know what? Nobody has ever said a thing about it. 

I hope that these tips will help you create a virtual commute and be better able to disconnect and transition into and out of work. Do you have a virtual commute now? What do you do to disconnect or connect? Are you overwhelmed or burned out working all the time? Tell me below!