Tips to better manage stress levels when working from home during COVID-19.

With widespread mandates for all non-essential employees to work from home to combat COVID-19, combined with more responsibilities than ever with schools being shut and help outside the home limited, many parents have been forced to change the way they work. How can working parents balance holding down a job with the increased demands of educating and entertaining children, shopping, cooking and cleaning? If you are finding it difficult to navigate these times, you are not alone.

In my experience working as a global transition and leadership coach, pre-pandemic, there were three challenges, relevant to today’s situation, that some clients struggled with:

• Reducing feelings of being overwhelmed.
• Being unable to switch off after leaving the office.
• Changing patterns of behavior where their reactions weren’t effective.

The good news is that as we transition from working in an environment that an employer created for us, to working in an environment that we created for our families, we have the opportunity to redesign our environment so that it works for us rather than against us.

In Atomic Habits, James Clear explains that out of all our senses, “visual cues are the greatest catalyst of our behavior … a small change in what you see can lead to a big shift in what you do. We mentally assign our habits to the locations in which they occur.”

I’m sharing three concepts I’ve created to assist working parents in reducing stress levels during these ‘stay at home’ times while jointly tackling some common pre-pandemic challenges. I’ve also paired them with an optional visual cue you many want to add to your new home work-space.

1. Scissors. Given that you are undergoing a transition, you won’t be able to work in the same way as you did before the pandemic. You’re in a new environment and it may take some time to get yourself running effectively and efficiently. Why not give yourself permission to show up in a different way than before, as an employee, as a parent, as a spouse, as a family member or as a friend? If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed, look no further than your scissors. To use them effectively, first list the expectations of yourself that feel overwhelming, either as a parent, employee or spouse. Then, after writing them down in order of importance, get the scissors and start cutting. Allow certain tasks to fall away until you feel your level of stress return to a manageable level. Then get back to work.

 2. Dimmer Switch. After concentrating on work all day, it makes sense that you may experience difficulty transitioning mentally from work to home, or vice versa, particularly during stressful times. When you were working from an office, perhaps listening to music while commuting or hitting the gym helped you gradually flip the switch. When working at home, you may not have that luxury. One simple redesign you may want to add to your new home work-space is a dimmer switch, a way to slowly turn on or turn off work. Maybe your new routine is a walk to the bathroom to splash water on your face before interacting with your family, maybe it’s a workout, or maybe you have different clothes for work that you take off at end of day. You know yourself best. What mental or physical journey can you take to transition from work to home or home to work? What visual cue can you install to remind you of this new routine? It could literally be a circular object stuck onto the light switch, a visual cue reminding you to start your routine of turning down work and turning up home.

3. Emergency Button. We all experience stress both in the workplace and at home. When pushed to our limits, sometimes we get angry and yell, or maybe we simply give up and stop trying. There are a number of paths to choose. If you find yourself reacting to a situation and not getting the results you want, be it with a colleague, a spouse or a child, hit the emergency button. This visual cue could simply be a red circle in your home work-space. Here’s how the button works. To activate it, you stop and ask the other person to give you a minute. Then you rewind to the moment before your emotions spiked and you yelled or slammed the door or insulted someone. Think about ways you could respond to the situation to get you the results you want. After considering your options, chose a response instead of continuing your existing reaction. By doing something different, you are allowing yourself to change the pattern and thus change the outcome.

What new redesigns will you make to your new home-work space to reduce your stress levels? This is a great time to experiment and discover which small changes lead to big shifts in reaching your potential. You’ve got this!

Alison Goldstein, Transition & Leadership Coach,

Website: www.alisongoldstein.com, Email: Coach@alisongoldstein.com

Image by Andreas Lischka from Pixabay.