Have you ever felt the weight of your remote work tying you down long after you’ve powered down your computer? I’m Alex from Remote Work Life, and I’ve been there—struggling to find the off switch for my workday, wrestling with the imbalance that crept into my personal life. But I’ve turned the tide, and in this episode, I share my journey toward a more balanced work experience. This isn’t just my story; it’s an amalgamation of experiences in remote work.
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Hey, it is Alex from Remote Work Life. Welcome to the Remote Work Life podcast. Thank you for joining me again today, and if you're here for the first time, every week I'll be. I am publishing quick tips, and you've joined me today on one of those days where I want to share with you a quick tip that I hope is going to help you to enhance your experience when working remotely, whether you're working from home, whether you're working from any other remote location for that matter. So today, as the title suggests, I'm talking about unplugging from work at the end of the day, to maintain a healthy work-life balance, and the idea of work-life balance is is unique to each person. One person's perception of what balance is is probably another person's lack of balance. So you, you create the balance that you want, and balance doesn't necessarily mean everything is is balanced. It's basically measuring things and, I guess, creating things or creating an environment for yourself that works for you, and what I'd say in terms of unplugging and my own experience of unplugging when I first started working remotely and in the early days of my time as a remote worker, I would find it really difficult to unplug from work and and stop thinking about work, and I guess that filtered into my, my leisure time. It filtered into my personal life to the point that I was literally wedded to my job, wedded to work, probably over dedicated to what I was doing. That led me to be unhappy, I guess, and also it filtered into the people around me. They became unhappy as well, because they couldn't get the attention from me that they wanted and the commitment from me to to, I guess, do things that were leisure or considered leisure activities, things that would, would benefit the family unit. So and then for me personally, I I became burnt out. I became, guess, not as engaged in work and just basically burnt out and a bit run down. So it had a detrimental effect on me personally but also on the people around me, and I knew I had to make a change. And I think, when I started to talk to other people who work remotely, especially those who had worked remotely for more years than I've worked remotely, especially those who had worked remotely for more years than I've worked remotely, it became apparent that I needed to change something, not just because of what they were doing but, as I said, because of the things, because of how it was affecting me and those around me and my work in general.
Speaker 1:
2:58
So here are a few tips that I want to share with you, some that I do myself, some that I've learned from others, in order to help to alleviate any feelings of you being wedded to your work and your inability to unplug yourself from work. It's really important. So, yeah, one thing you should do is set clear boundaries, so establish specific work hours for yourself. And, yes, there may be need to have some flex here and there, but at least if you have clear boundaries of when you're starting work, when you're taking your breaks, when you're finishing work, then you know you can work to those targets much easier. And what I found personally, I got more done when I had specific and clear boundaries, plus those around me. They would give me more time to or it seemed like I was able to get the time that I wanted to finish what I wanted to do. So setting clear boundaries is certainly something I would recommend personally.
Speaker 1:
4:10
Another thing is establish, I guess, a specific end to work, a dedicated ritual, I suppose you could call it. So that's number two. So establishing a dedicated end of work ritual or end of day ritual. That could be something as simple as unplugging deliberately unplugging your your laptop, shutting the laptop down specifically, it could be something as simple as putting your your laptop away, so it's out of sight, out of mind. Folding up your desk if you have a folded desk. So that is something that you do every day. For example, you clear everything from your workspace if you don't have your own office. If you do have an office, it might be again wrapping those things up, closing your laptop down and shutting the office door. It may even be locking the office door. Who knows? I don't know what your ritual would be or how you would do it, but having an established end of day ritual that signals the completion of your work.
Speaker 1:
5:17
So what else? Unplugging from work tools? That's number three. So turn off work related notifications, avoid checking emails or messages after the designated end of your work day. So even better, I mean if you do work as part of a wider team, if you've got a, if you have a dedicated laptop ideally you would have that so you could turn that off. As I was mentioning before, if you have a dedicated uh mobile phone, you turn that off and put that away. So it's out of sight, out of mind. So that's number three.
Speaker 1:
5:54
Number four, engage in things such as leisure activities, things that are just totally removed from your work scenario. So dedicate time to leisure activities, hobbies or spending quality time with your family and friends to recharge and maintain a balance that you know, that healthy balance, or at least promote a healthy balance. And what else would I say? I mean, I say this quite often, but you know focusing on your own wellness in many ways, whether that's physical or psychological wellness, or consider incorporating wellness rituals into your end-of-day routine. For example, doing some exercise it could be going for a swim, going for a walk for a run or ride your bike. Doing some exercise it could be going for a swim, going for a walk, for a run, ride your bike, or if you've got one of those walking pads that I've seen these are quite popular these days you might go on your walking pad if you're unable to get out of the house. On it, if it's particularly rain, I don't know, for whatever reason that you might not be able to get out of the house. So establish a wellness, something that's going to help you physically and hopefully also help you mentally as well.
Speaker 1:
7:06
So, yeah, those are my five tips, some of which I do myself, others, which I perhaps should be doing, so I hope that has helped you today. That's your quick tip for the day, and that is unplug from work at the end of the day to maintain a healthy work-life balance. If this has been useful for you, if this episode has been useful for you, please consider sharing re-sharing with your network. Please also subscribe and leave your review or your rating as part of the episode and please, uh, also consider dropping me a line with any of your suggestions. If there's any guests that you would like to have on the show or any suggestions for future podcasts, then please, I'm all ears and you can check out my details in the show notes just below to get in contact with me directly. Thanks once again.