Surviving the Stay at Home Order

5 tips for maintaining your sanity during the Maryland Stay at Home order.

Create Social Spaces

We are social creatures. Even the most introverted people need some social interaction. We often don't realize how socializing with our colleagues and friends at work satisfies those needs, until we work from home. Create some online social spaces to spend time with your colleagues outside of a work context. Join a video call and have lunch. Join a virtual happy hour and blow off some steam with your co-workers.

Do Something New

Pick up a new hobby. Read more. Take Online Courses For Free.  Write a blog. Do a podcast. Plant a garden. Find ways to replace the time that you used to spend meeting with friends, shopping, hitting the gym, eating out, etc with something new. Filling your free time will make keeping a good work/life balance easier.

Get some exercise

Staying at home can mean a mean a more sedentary lifestyle. Walking around the office to ask questions and have quick discussion, going to the bathroom, the printer and recycling bins adds in terms of physical activity. Ask anyone who counts steps. Take walks to start working out. Keep your metabolism healthy

Maintain your Boundaries

Maintain the boundaries you set for work/life hours. Post working hours for your family. Don't get sucked into 1 hour conversations at 5:30 PM. Hold yourself to your scheduled social time with colleagues during work.

Find the Positives

Once you've worked from home for a month, you may realize a few things:

• How ridiculous all those meetings were
• How much your organization's communication quality needs to improve
• How chat is an effective and efficient way to get similar results to a meeting
• How incredibly inefficient it is to commute in rush hour traffic twice a day
• How much time we weren't working during work hours
• How it’s no longer as necessary to live in an expensive city
• How difficult it is to concentrate at home when you have kids or a stay at home spouse
• How lonely working from home can be
• How much more productive you are