Working from Home Without Losing My Mind

I wanted to share a few things that have helped me mentally and physically as we all figure out how to deal with COVID-19.

I'm a people person and I can feel lonely very easily so I've been working really hard at making sure I don't allow myself to get in a bad place mentally or else it will take me down in every way.

I've been working at home for a week and a half already and we're heading into what my company expects to be the last week of work from home. Here are some things that have made working from home bearable for me:

- I require myself to be showered and dressed, including socks and shoes and be sitting at my computer by 8am. I typically wear running clothes and sneakers but it feels like the day has started when I'm showered and dressed. Most days, work has been off and running well before 8 but I'm trying to stay with my normal work hours as best I can although it's been terribly stressful for our HR team to keep up with everything that is happening and the roll with all of the changes. I'm on a conference call everyday at 11am with our Operations team and things change several times from day to day.

-I drink 2-3 cups of coffee, just like I would at work and then move to drinking lots of water. I love cold water so I've been using my Yeti cup everyday just like I would at my desk with lots of ice and water. I take several trips a day to the kitchen to refill my water, its a whopping 10ish feet.

-I'm trying to go outside and walk mid-day. Although the pace at which things are moving with work have really made that difficult. Even if everything seems to be in a stable place, I'm afraid to walk away from my computer for 30 minutes.

-When the workday is done, I turn off the light in my dining room, my makeshift work setup, and I basically ignore the entire room until the next day. This weekend, I've had to do some work both Saturday and Sunday but I really try to disconnect from the dining room during hours that I'm not working and I try to disconnect from the couch and TV during time that I'm working. I've done well compartmentalizing.

I'm also lucky that I have this sweet guy who keeps me company. Last week one day when I went to the kitchen to refill my water, I came back to my work area to find that Igor had taken over and was handling the work for me.