Remote Work Habits That Are Really Healthy

Remote work has a plethora of different benefits. It can help you stay more focused, feel happier, save money, live a greener lifestyle, and maintain a more balanced social life. One of the biggest benefits of remote work, though, is the ability to more easily incorporate your fitness routine into your daily grind. With less time spent commuting and a more flexible schedule, remote work offers an ideal opportunity to maximize what you’re getting out of your workout routine. That said, your health goals probably won’t automatically mesh with your remote work setup. You’ll need to strategize if you want to sync up the two parts of your life. Here are a few home remote work habits that you can harness to help you prioritize your health while still crushing your remote work activities.

Healthy home Remote Work Habits to Enhance Productivity and Set Yourself Up for Success

Start with Structure

It’s tempting to build your remote workday around your fitness goals, but the truth is, this is often difficult to sustain over time. The priority of your professional pursuits can too easily trump your commitment to your health, and if it boils down to choosing one over the other, work will win out all too often.

Instead, start with building habits and structure into your home remote work itself. If you can gain firm control over your virtual work situation, you can begin to get a clearer picture of how your fitness activities can fit in regularly. A few remote work habits and activities that can help create structure include:

• Defining your workspace: Having a dedicated workspace can help you stay organized and focused on work when you’re on the clock.
• Getting rid of distractions: Make sure your home office and other remote workspaces are clear of distractions that can interrupt your workflow.
• Scheduling work hours: You may have a flexible routine, but establishing clear remote work hours can give you parameters to work with as you schedule your life on the home front.
• Investing in strategic planning: Whether you’re an employer or an employee, use things like workflow apps and virtual whiteboards to help you collaborate, strategize, and generally stay on the same page with your remote work team.

Setting boundaries like these can bring a unique sense of structure to your home remote work habits lifestyle. It helps you stay focused and engaged throughout your working hours. It can also enable you to disconnect and focus on your personal life when the time comes. Flexibility is often touted as a benefit of remote work. However, creating habits that bring your own unique sense of structure to your remote-work setup is a critical step in successfully incorporating your fitness objectives into the mix.

Address Ergonomics and Stretching

Once you have your workspace defined along with your remote work habits, work hours set, and your general remote work structure in place, you want to consider two critical areas where your work impacts your fitness: ergonomics and stretching.

It’s wise to build remote work habits around these before you start working on bigger items like finding the time to visit the gym or go for a jog. If habits like your posture aren’t maintained, it can seriously impact your ability to stay fit.

Start with ergonomics. Consider your remote work setup. Do you have a comfortable chair with good lumbar support? You may also want to get an adjustable desk that allows you to sit or stand. The lighting in your office — from natural lighting to artificial lighting and even the brightness of your monitor — is also important, as improper illumination can strain your eyes.

If you work for someone who values healthy employees, you may be able to get some of these ergonomic considerations covered at your employer’s expense. Even if you can’t, though, they’re still worth investing in. As a rule, it’s wise to get into the remote work habits of regularly evaluating your office’s ergonomics.

Along with ergonomics, also look for ways to add stretching into your routine. As you work, plan in points along the way to stand up, stretch your legs, and even slip in a good deskercise routine. That way, when the time comes to work out, you aren’t dealing with cramps and pulled muscles.

Incorporate Your Workout Activities

The next step is to begin thoughtfully incorporating your workout into your established work routine. At this point, you should have a solid grasp of your workday and have considered daily remote work habits that can help with things like your posture and your muscles.

Now it’s time to find where your workouts fit into the schedule. Everyone’s fitness routine varies. You may like to work out before work, after work, or even both. You may need an hour or you might need three.

Regardless, if you’ve established productive habits that allow you to harness your workday, you can easily find the best time to work out. With the flexible nature of so many remote work scenarios, you may even be able to add a workout into the middle of your workday.

Think Beyond Your Physique

As you puzzle your remote work, ergonomics, stretching, and fitness activities together, here are a few more habits to keep in mind that go beyond your physical workouts:

• Look away from your computer screen. It’s recommended that you look at least 20 feet away from your screen for 20 seconds once every 20 minutes. This 20-20-20 rule can help reduce the strain on your eyes.
• Go outside. Getting fresh air, sunshine, and outdoor activity are all great fitness aids that are easily accessible in a remote work setup. In some scenarios, you may even be able to create an entire outdoor office to maximize these benefits.
• Eat, sleep, and be merry. Along with fitness and work, remember that you should also round out your personal life with other critical activities. Of particular importance is the need to eat well, get plenty of sleep, and socialize with others. If your workouts are exacerbating your back pain, there are a variety of positions you can sleep in that can mitigate it.

If you’re working remotely, it’s important to think beyond workouts and productivity as you build the ideal work-from-home structure for yourself.

Creating Healthy Remote Work Habits

Whether you’re interviewing for a remote position soon or you’re already laboring on the homefront, it’s important to get the most out of your remote work setup. This starts with getting a handle on the structure and productivity of your remote work activities themselves.

From there, make sure that your office ergonomics are helping and not hurting your body and that you’re regularly stretching throughout the day. Then look for the best areas where workouts and fitness activities can fit into your flexible remote schedule.

If you can develop key habits throughout your remote work lifestyle, you can capitalize on all of the fitness and health benefits that it has to offer.