Whether you are a remote employee or stuck working from your home for the foreseeable future due to the current crisis more and more people are working from their homes. Working from home has many benefits. Commuting is no longer an issue, isolating yourself is helping to slow the spread of this disease, you can be more flexible with regards to your family and sometimes you can be more productive in your own house.
As time goes on, and we get past this crisis, we will continue to see more and more people working remotely. 20 years ago, around 20 percent of companies even offered this, now around half of the people work from their house occasionally. With the increase of people working from their house, a lot are finding the drawbacks quickly. Being around your family is nice, but sometimes, if you have small children at home they can be a big distraction. For some, they just might not have a dedicated space to work from. You also don’t have your usual office set up and now are working from a laptop instead of your large nice desktop. The biggest issue may be the fact that you just aren’t comfortable, and maybe even in some pain.
Good news, there are a few things that we can do to help ease the strain,
Use Audio equipment to keep from bending your neck (headset, BlueTooth speakers, etc)
Don’t work from your couch, try to set up your work station at the kitchen table or desk
Keep your monitor close to avoid leaning forward
The top of your screen should be about 15 degrees below your eye level
Relax your shoulders, keep your shoulders bent to 90 degrees (if using a laptop, use a large book, or small box to raise your screen up)
Position the keyboard and mouse so you don’t need to move your arms or bend your wrist to use them.
Keep your hip and knees bent to around 90 degrees
Take plenty of breaks
One of the biggest things that can be done to remove strain, during this time period is to take micro-breaks. This is something that I tell every office worker. Break up your workday as much as possible. Try to take a break every 20-30 minutes. Doing things like taking a walk around the block, playing with the kids for a few minutes, or even just stretching for a few minutes will do. Take a look at these stretches below.
