Reclaim Your Time: Top Working From Home Tips

If you work remotely, you’ve likely heard all the jokes about not showering for days and sitting at your computer in pajamas. The truth behind the joke is that people might manage working from home by skipping the shower or not getting out of bed to open up their laptop because they’re working more and staying “on the clock” beyond regular business hours.

In a 2024 paper by a team of occupational psychologists, researchers analyzed data from almost 2000 articles on the effects of remote working. What they found supports the general feeling that working at home makes it harder for employees to disconnect: not only do workers send and receive more internal emails than before the pandemic, their workday was almost an hour longer.

Today, the trend continues, with recent surveys showing that almost half of all women and roughly a third of men work more hours from home than in the workplace.

If employers and managers don’t want their remote employees to feel burnout, they need to help them regain a better work-life balance with remote work tips. And it’s not just up to employers; employees need to establish healthier work-from-home habits, too. In this article, we’ll discuss tips for employers and employees to help everyone achieve a better work-from-home balance.

How Can Employers and Managers Help Remote Employees Disconnect?

Resist Falling Into “Crisis Mode”

The pandemic threw many businesses off course back in 2020, and many had to ask their employees to do more with less—for example, fewer workers due to furloughs or downsizing; fewer resources and materials due to supply chain disruptions, etc.

But as the world has adapted to the changes brought about in the early part of the decade, it isn’t necessary to think about things as you once did. Just because your employees are near their work equipment 24/7 doesn’t mean they’re available or willing to be “on” all the time, particularly beyond regular working hours.

If you found your team even more productive in the shift to remote work, great. But take care not to continue pushing unrealistic goals. Overwork them, and they’ll get sick, burn out, or quit. So, instead, provide support and remote working help to get the most out of your workers.

Keep to a Regular, Predictable Business Schedule

Different industries have different hours of operation and different standards for what constitutes a “regular day at the office.” Stick to those hours as much as possible for the sake of your employees. Their lives may be unpredictable, but your expectations need to be clear, consistent, and reasonable, regardless of whether employees work remotely or on-site.

Working remotely doesn’t give you free reign over your employees’ time. So, if you find yourself typing up an email at midnight for something your employees could do the next day, stop typing. It might do you some good to switch off at home, too.

Communicate Openly and Honestly

“This is all well and good,” you might be thinking, “but what if we can’t afford to throttle back at this point?” Then tell your employees. Whatever the situation might be, it’s better to be upfront about what’s happening. If you’re considering layoffs or furloughs, you might think you’re doing your employees a favor by shielding them from the truth. But what you’re really doing is making it harder for them to prepare for what’s coming.

And on the other hand, if you’ve got good news to share—e.g., you’re hiring again, unfreezing pay raises, bringing back furloughed or laid-off employees—then telling your employees helps relieve some of the pressure they’re feeling to pick up the slack and always be “on.”

Be Development-Oriented

There are a lot of myths about remote work, especially when it comes to productivity, that might have you hounding your remote employees even after all this time. But that’s just what they are—myths. If you’ve hired the right people, trained them well, and given them the right tools to do their jobs, it’s also in their best interest to keep performing well.

Work toward creating a culture of continuous development and performance, starting with the feedback and performance reviews you give your employees. If they regularly hear both what they’re doing well and what they need to improve in, they’ll be more productive in the long run.

Lean into your productivity tools for project management, communication, and managing work from home. This will help your employees be more productive and independent, and help you feel less like a nanny.

Encourage Socializing That Isn’t About Work

According to research on the impact of hybrid working, employees are sitting through more meetings and with more people in those meetings. Certainly, collaboration is key when working remotely, and some of these meetings might be replacing more impromptu conversations that would otherwise take place in person in the office.

But just like conversations at work might veer into the personal realm, leave room for people to be, well, people. Your employees’ workspace doesn’t include coworkers anymore, so they can’t have those casual conversations at the coffee machine or walking around the office. These simple interactions aren’t just nice distractions; they build camaraderie and solidarity.

Not every conference call needs to turn into a kaffeeklatsch. But it might not be a bad idea to suggest something like that to your team—as long as there isn’t any sense of obligation, because that would defeat the whole purpose of helping employees disconnect.

How Can Employees Disconnect When Working Remotely?

Understand Your Manager’s Expectations

Without clear direction, it’s easy for you to put unnecessary pressure on yourself to work too hard. You might feel unsure of how your manager is measuring your performance or monitoring your productivity now that you’re not all working in the same location. Or maybe it seems like everyone else is putting in longer hours, so you try to match what you perceive to be their speed.

But instead of working yourself into a burnout, do the (not so) scary thing and check in with your manager. What do they actually expect from you, and in what time frame? What do you need from them in terms of feedback? Don’t toil away in obscurity, trying to measure up to a standard that was never set in the first place. It can help when you’re switching off at home.

Set Clear Boundaries for Yourself

If your employer is flexible or you’re in a more senior position, you might be responsible for setting your own limits. While we’re certainly not telling anyone to be any less productive, you also need to be reasonable with yourself. How did you spend your time before you worked from home? While you may not have had a strict schedule when working at an office, a routine can help set better boundaries when working remotely.

If your living space is now “the office”, it’s there all the time staring at you. You don’t have your commute and a physically separate location to mark the difference between “home” and “work.” But for your own sanity, you need to recreate it somehow.

Here are some working from home tips that can help you a separate work and home life:

• Dress for work, and then change when you’re done for the day.
• Create a new routine and schedule for yourself, one that has a set start and end time, to recreate the rhythm of leaving for and returning from work.
• Do something that marks the end of your day and replaces the ritual of leaving the office, like taking a walk or spending time with your significant other, children, or pets.
• If possible, limit your work to a single space, like a home office or a specific desk, so that work doesn’t feel like it’s taking over every part of your home.
• Schedule breaks during the workday where you don’t look at your work phone or laptop.
• Make time for your usual hobbies and interests. It might be tempting since it’s already at home with you, but don’t use work to fill your free time “after hours.”

Set Expectations with Your Family or Housemates

Working from home has a lot of advantages. If you have a family or a significant other, you get to see them more often. If you’re a dog owner, you get to take your furry friend on midday walks. But your housemates, mostly the human ones, can also throw your work-life balance off-kilter.

In the same way that you need to discuss schedule expectations with your manager, you need to make it clear to your housemates when you’re “at work”—whether that’s writing up a schedule, hanging a “busy/free” sign on your door, or however else.

As the year progresses, think to yourself, do you need to readjust your expectations? Does the routine still work for you? Your children may be back at school or doing school from home, which adds different beats to the work-family rhythm than during the summer months.

If Your Children Are at Home, Be Flexible

We realize we just told employers to keep to regular business hours, but for employees working from home with children, that might not be possible and may cause even more stress and anxiety about work, making it harder for them to fully disconnect.

Just like we told employers and managers, the best way for you to avoid burning out on stress and anxiety about your work schedule is to realize that it’s not going to be the same as it would if you worked on-site. But just because you’re not working your usual 9 to 5 with an hour lunch break doesn’t mean you can’t still be productive.

Here are some remote work tips to adjust your schedule to be less stressed:

• Work at times that work for you. For example, you may need to take a longer break for lunch, but you might also be able to start earlier in the day.
• Work in concentrated bursts. SHRM suggests setting a timer so that kids know when they can interrupt and when they need to leave you to work.
• Switch parenting duties with your partner. If both of you are working, divide up the time for who will be responsible for the kids.
• Let them be bored on occasion—it’s not the end of the world. In fact, they might even learn more independence and creativity.

Communicate with Your Manager Often

We’ve given this advice to managers and employers, and now it’s your turn to hear it: communication is crucial. First of all, we know working remotely can be isolating. You’re not seeing coworkers or much of anybody, and that takes a toll on your mental health.

Secondly, your manager can’t read your mind even in the best of times, and it’s easier to have misunderstandings when you’re not working in the same physical workplace. Nobody loves video conferencing, but it’s better to have a quick face-to-face conversation to get your questions answered or explain your concerns. Video conferencing lets you talk it out in real time rather than trading emails, and the added benefit of seeing each other’s body language provides important context for your communications.

When the Day is Done, Do Something Other Than Work

As with your work schedule, remember to focus on purposefully relaxing when choosing after-work activities instead of trying to meet some undefined standard for constant personal productivity. For example, putting pressure on yourself to learn a whole new language on top of everything else you have going on might send you further down a spiral of decision fatigue and burnout. No matter where the mental load comes from, taking on too much can shortchange both your personal and professional goals.

So binge-watch TV shows, if that’ll help you unwind. Run through your neighborhood instead of on the treadmill at the gym. Or if learning a new language is a fun and fulfilling challenge, go ahead. Discover what works to clear your mind, recharge your batteries, and disconnect from work—then make time for it.

Finding Balance when Working from Home

Working from home puts a different strain on employers and employees alike. While staying productive certainly is important, another top priority for everyone is to keep a healthy work-life balance.

It’s important to recognize we all have different needs, at home and in the workplace. It’s never been more important to make the necessary changes to accommodate and respect each other’s best ways of working to remain productive when remote working.