It has been tricky keeping motivated, engaged, and satisfied in our jobs over the past year. You may have been feeling this for some time, long before the pandemic swept in and changed the face of work as we know it. For many of us, the biggest thing we’ve had to remote work is getting newly adjusted to is clearing out a corner of our bedrooms or, if we’ve lucky our studies, and turning them into full-time workspaces.
Lord knows this hasn’t been the easiest job in the world. What with the kids bored and loaded on sugar running about the house screaming at the top of their lungs or your significant other’s inability to operate a toaster, so inevitably it’s your job to put lunch on their plate. It’s made a stressful job doubly stressful. Hopefully, if things continue to go to plan, this dramatic lifestyle change will return back to normal, and we’ll all be back in the office.
But for now, while we’re all stuck inside still working from home, it’s important to find ways to keep motivated and not sink into a metaphorical pit of despair. It is easy to spiral, and this stagnation can affect both our home and work lives in equal respect. Hopefully, this past year has given everyone a good time to think and potentially reassess some things. If you’re finding yourself in a bit of a rut at the moment, here are some useful ways to hopefully coax you out of it and back onto your feet:
1.Rearrange Your Work Space
This may seem like a fairly frivolous point at first blush. You may be asking, How will the location of my standee lamp improve my work and mood!? And to be fair, you’d have a point, and this alone will not completely renovate your situation.
However, a change of scenery has been known to improve your well-being. People go stir crazy staring at the same four walls. You may feel like you are being imprisoned. Of course, there isn’t really much you can do about the walls themselves unless you’re feeling a little destructive and fancy taking a swing at one of them.
There is one thing you can do, though, and that’s by changing the layout of your room. Though all the furniture will be the same and as will the room, you will feel like you’re in a new space. It‘s also just a fun activity to break up the monotony of work. Give it a try!
2.Make Sure To Give Yourself Down Time
Obviously, we all know about the importance of stepping back from our computer screens and giving ourselves a break. Without a separation between work and leisure time and the spaces where we do it, it is easy to get fatigued. This fatigue can lead to performance failure and job dissatisfaction.
While we may know this, it can be a) hard to close the laptop screen and b) know what to do in our downtime. This doesn’t mean tending to other matters such as home or kids. It means completely taking a step back, taking a moment of quiet that’s just for yourself, occupying yourself with something that doesn’t relate to work. This could mean going for a run, doing yoga or meditating, or even scrolling through Instagram for 10 minutes every couple of hours. Whatever works for you, you should do it; you’ll be doing yourself a huge service.
3.Introduce Houseplants and Photos Into Your Workspace
Like with our offices at work. It is important to keep our home workstations/areas furnished with our belongings. The items that remind us of our lives outside of work. Of course, it is your own home; you are bound to have some of these possessions close by to your desk—the odd family photo, maybe a succulent.
Though this is already a great start, consider introducing more photographs, little landscapes you may have taken on holiday, days out with friends, childhood photos, etc. Furthermore, more plants add a fresh, vibrant feel and a useful reminder of the outside world. They have been known to improve happiness, and why wouldn’t they?
They’re beautiful. Watering and caring for your plants also gives you something fun and engaging to do whilst you work, and you will start to build a special bond with them and thus with your workspace too.
4.Introduce More Natural Light Into Your Workspace
Seasonal depression is a real thing. A lack of sunlight or vitamin D can make us more unhappy and thus affect our remote work. Of course, this is not to suggest you replace all your walls with windows. That would be an expensive and laborious process.
However, where you can, try to introduce more natural light into your room. This means making sure blinds and curtains are open or going outside every once in a while to take in the sun before returning to work. There are also natural light lamps you can purchase that try and replicate the feeling of the natural light of the day. This is not going to be a 1 to 1 replacement for the real thing, but as lighting goes, it may go some way to improving your mood.
5.Consider A New Career Path or Change your Job Entirely
If you truly are struggling to stay motivated and nothing has been working. Perhaps the problem is less you and what you can do to make your job better, but the job itself. Hopefully, the past year has given you some time to think. If you’re dissatisfied with your job and this has brought it bubbling to the surface.
Consider other avenues and options you can take in your career. It is never too late. This is not as easy as getting up and leaving. But no one should stay in a job that they find unfulfilling and dissatisfying. For ways of finding the career path that best suits you, your hobbies, interests, and your personality type, check out the Strong Interest Inventory.
Hopefully, these tips help, and you are able to find ways in order to better improve your work and your overall happiness!
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