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3 December 2020
As of late, this phrase has become increasingly popular. The idea of working from home has gained popularity in the last few years and has of course been gaining traction this year due to the global pandemic. We have heard a lot of positives about working from home, the time we save on travel, lowering global fuel consumption as fewer people commute, the list goes on…What has not been discussed with as much enthusiasm are the negative aspects of working from home and how to combat them.
Harvard Business school’s article “Between Home and Work: Commuting as an opportunity for role transitions” highlights the benefit of the commute as not only a practical element in our lives but one that gives us time to mentally commute between work and home life. How do we ‘switch off’ after a day at the office if we live at the office? This is an issue we all face when working from home. We need to recreate our routines in a way that benefits both our home and work life.
So-called “Zoom burnout” or fatigue is another factor, although videoconferencing has allowed us to stay connected during difficult times and generally made meetings easier, many have experienced increased fatigue as a result, as this form of communication seems to be more draining than a face-to-face meeting. One reason for this, according to Gianpiero Petriglieri, associate professor at Instead, is that video conferences require more focus as we have to work harder to interpret non-verbal cues: “Our minds are together when our bodies feel we’re not. That dissonance, which causes people to have conflicting feelings, is exhausting. You cannot relax into the conversation naturally”
Harvard Business Review collected data from 12,000 people across the U.S. and Europe during the pandemic. The study revealed that while we save time in commute we tend to spend additional time on unproductive work and unsatisfying leisure activities. How do we ensure we use the time that we save wisely?
Here are three tips you can follow to combat the negatives of living at work: