How to Work Remotely in a Healthy Way

2023-10-10

In the past two months, I’ve been working remotely. However, remote work isn’t as glamorous as many imagine, like wearing swimsuits on the beach and closing million-dollar deals with a laugh. Remote work simply means a different office location. The work system and processes depend on the company’s and team’s culture and atmosphere, which we’ll not discuss here.

Remote work has its pros and cons compared to on-site work. One advantage is the convenience of creating a comfortable work environment. For instance, if the height of the desk isn’t right, you can change it to one that suits you, which isn’t easy to do with an office desk.

However, there are downsides too. For example, having the same place for living and working can blur the boundaries between life and work. I’ve had extreme situations where I was stuck on a bug with no clues, feeling frustrated. I went to bed but couldn’t sleep, got up at 1 AM to debug for an hour, made some progress, went back to sleep, and continued debugging at 8 AM the next day, then worked for the whole day. This is very unhealthy behavior that must be avoided.

To address and resolve bad habits, clear and feasible rules are needed to regulate personal behavior. As participants, we should know how to maintain our physical and mental health while working remotely.

Work Location

Because a suitable work environment is necessary, you can’t choose your work location too freely. Working in a mall, coffee shop, library, or study room is inappropriate. Not only do you need to buy coffee, but such seating isn’t suitable for long hours, and having video meetings in public places is inconvenient. Especially for programmers, you need a 27-inch external monitor, an ergonomic chair, and a focused environment. If you work late, coffee shops won’t be open, which is problematic.

Shared offices like WeWork have limited options and are very expensive, costing 100 to 300 yuan per day. Long-term use is costly, and many shared offices don’t allow you to store personal items. The industry is not mature and not a good choice.

Overall, the work location can only be in your own room. If you own a house with a spare study or room, that room can be used as a work location.

If you’re renting, the situation is slightly worse. Generally, you’d only rent a bedroom, so your desk becomes your workspace. Renting another room specifically for remote work is costly. Providing a workspace is originally the company’s responsibility, so passing this cost onto employees is unreasonable.

Another solution is to move to a low-cost city. Since remote work isn’t location-bound, reducing expenses while improving quality of life is feasible. However, this only applies if you have no friends in your current city. Otherwise, even for one person, you can’t change cities.

Clear Boundaries Between Life and Work

On-site work offers a clear distinction between life and work as you move between home and the office. You may feel that no matter how tired you are, home is for rest. You might leave your computer at the office, not bring it home, or the work environment might be on the company intranet, making it impossible to work from home. Various reasons create a clear distinction between work time and personal time.

However, remote work blurs these boundaries. Imagine having a bed next to your office desk at work, with all living essentials provided. Waking up to see your desk is terrifying.

Imagine living a whole day, starting work an hour after waking up, ending work two hours before bed, and spending all your non-working time in the same room. It’s a maddening scenario.

The most important aspect of remote work is ensuring clear boundaries between life and work. Here are some behaviors to achieve this:

These actions aren’t specific or necessarily good, just examples. The point is to send yourself clear signals through a series of physical actions. After four or five actions, you’re in work mode; after another four or five, you’re off work. Relying solely on time concepts to switch between work and personal time is difficult. Self-disciplined people might manage it, but if you can’t, rely on physical behaviors to create boundaries.

Outdoor Activities

As mentioned earlier, taking a walk during your usual commute time helps maintain a similar routine to on-site work and, more importantly, ensures you spend enough time outdoors for health. Even a simple walk is better than staying home all day.

Some think the benefit of remote work is saving commute time for more sleep. This is wrong. The extra time should be used for exercise. No one can stand staying home all the time.

Social Activities

After starting remote work, I even began to suspect that talking to people is a physiological need. Maybe due to serious work, spending the whole workday in the same place without seeing people or talking makes me extremely eager to go out and play on weekends.

It’s not about how fun the games are but about changing the environment, relaxing, meeting different people, playing different games, and doing things unrelated to work.

Pomodoro Technique

In an office, various small events—someone talking to you, passing by your desk, making noise, or you getting a drink, buying a beverage, or using the restroom—distract you and break your concentration. These interruptions can be annoying but prevent prolonged focus.

Too much focus isn’t good. It dulls the mind and pressures the body, causing back and neck pain. People need to stand and stretch periodically.

The Pomodoro Technique means working for 25 minutes and resting for 5, which is one Pomodoro. This time distribution is popular for a reason—it’s effective.

Don’t use software like Stretchly that pops up on the screen. It’s frustrating and you’ll likely close it. Even with a 30-second warning, it doesn’t improve the experience. If you can’t stop within 30 seconds, the break is ineffective. Pop-ups covering the screen can cause slight anxiety, worrying about missing messages or screen updates.

Instead, use a countdown timer with an alarm. After 25 minutes, the alarm sounds and won’t stop until manually turned off. This persistent reminder encourages you to stand and relax. Of course, you must be disciplined enough to stand and turn off the alarm.

Sometimes, you might forget to start the timer. Setting multiple alarms to ring at specific times, like 25 and 55 minutes past each hour, can help. You don’t have to follow the alarm times strictly, but at least they remind you to rest.

Moderate breaks improve efficiency. Difficult problems often find solutions during relaxation.

Ritual

As a supplementary note, the behaviors described above create a sense of ritual. Both starting and ending work need rituals, often created by the environment. Sometimes, you can create them yourself. Life needs rituals.