A lot of us are finding out that working from home everyday is vastly different from working at home occasionally. I have an office job, normally, and work the occasional day from home to focus on specific projects I need to get done without distraction. Now, like many across the United States, I’m doing it full-time.

I’m lucky to have a job that makes this possible. For too many people, the reality is either a layoff or continuing to go out into the world to work, exposing self and loved ones to a potentially deadly virus. I’m blessed to have both a job that can be done remotely and an employer who understood the coronavirus situation early on and made working from home an early option.

That doesn’t mean it’s always easy. It’s hard not to blur work and home life when you don’t leave the house to go to work. That may be exacerbated now because we don’t go anywhere else either, except on an occasional supply run. (My husband is the designated shopper in my house, so I don’t even do that.) I suspect depression is also a threat due both to social isolation and the potential monotony of the unchanging environment.

Tips for the home office

There are ways to make it easier, though. Here’s what I do to keep work time feeling like work time, and distinct from home time:

• Have a designated office space that’s used only for work. This might be a whole room or just a corner of one. Mine is only the size of my desk. But it’s a place I use only when I’m “at work,” and that’s what matters. Mine is where I used to sit to write this blog. No longer, I’ve given it over entirely to me job, and I know write everything of my own from a different space.
• Establish, or keep, a routine that sets aside at least a small amount of personal time. I start my morning writing in this blog, or writing poetry, usually with my first cup of coffee (although today I haven’t yet brewed that). I sit down to work at about the same time I would be doing so if I still drove to the office every morning. Depending on the weather, I might take a mid-day break to get the dogs out for a walk—particularly if rain threatens later in the day. More often I work straight through the day.
• Let co-workers know when I’m “leaving” work. I started doing this because I have a job that’s ramped up enormously due to COVID-19, and much of the work that comes to me is urgent. Letting my boss and my co-workers know when I was leaving to walk the dog or shutting down for the day was a courtesy intended to make sure I wouldn’t leave them in a lurch. As it turns out, it serves me also, by giving me peace of mind to have personal time. I carry my phone with me on walks, and sometimes people do need to call me. But they know that I’m away from my desk, and they don’t expect me to rush back to it immediately. Once I’ve checked in and received clearance to take 45 minutes off or call it a complete work day, my time away from my desk becomes mine again in a substantively different way.
• Shower and dress for work. My mode of dressing for work is much more casual than office attire, and I revel in the ability to wear sweatpants that are in tatters and can’t be allowed out of the house. But I don’t stay in pajamas or a bathrobe, and I don’t wear what I wore the day before. I expect mental health professionals could tell me why this makes such a difference in keeping my spirits up; I just know that it does.
• Get out of the house to exercise every day. I fear rainy days because they will make this harder; I’ll probably try substituting yoga and sitting out on the covered front porch to breathe fresh air.
• Keep following whatever are your normal workday rules about drinking alcohol (or using other recreational drugs). I don’t drink alcohol on work nights or during work days. Now that work nights look and feel pretty much the same as weekend nights, it’s tempting to ease that rule. I don’t.

Goal setting

My habit of goal setting isn’t about working from home but about coping with isolation. But I recommend it also.

I did pretty well with yesterday’s goals:

• Photo of the day—check
• Read poetry—check
• Dog walk (snow be damned)—check
• Don’t eat too many cookies—well, nobody’s perfect
• Stretch goals: I did the exercise walk and ate dinner at a normal hour, but didn’t create anything but a blog post.

For today, here’s my plan:

• Photo of the day
• Read poetry
• Record a poem to share with others
• Dog walk and exercise walk
• This blog post
• Figure out if I need to go to the Post Office to purchase stamps
• Dinner with friends via FaceTime if I’m able to quit work on time
• Check the status of my seed order

Photo of the day

My world was blanketed in snow when I woke up yesterday, and I knew it wouldn’t last. It was really heavy, wet snow, so I knew the trees would be better off with it melted. But it was pretty. I don’t think I captured it well, but I’m fairly pleased with this shot of my largest garden ornament.