Advice on working from home on quarantine days
Date Added: 16 April 2020, 23:16
Last Updated Date:17 November 2020, 13:13

Psychologist Tuğçe Denizgil Evre, a specialist of the Near East University Hospital Department of Psychiatry, made morale and motivation-enhancing suggestions for those who have to continue their professional life from home due to Covid-19 epidemic.
“Because of Covid-19, we have been forced to take a break or change our old life style for a while. In addition to our social life, changing hygiene understanding and a lot of new habits acquired, our professional life, which covers a large part of our lives, and which we have gained material and moral gains, has undoubtedly been one of the most important issues that have undergone change.” saying psychologist Tuğçe Denizgil Evre, stated that working from home, which emerged in order to prevent contamination and protect public health, appeared as a factor that reduces morale and motivation.

Expressing that there are measures that can be taken by people about working from home without loss of morale and motivation, psychologist Tuğçe Denizgil Evre pointed out that it is psychologically important to follow the daily routine as much as possible in this type of situations.

Here are the suggestions for the people working from home to protect mental health;

  1. Take care to wake up as early as possible in the morning. Staying in bed until evening or late will make you depressed and useless, and benefiting from the sunlight will make you feel more energetic and happy. The job given to you or a project/report that you must complete has a deadline to submit. Without waiting for this deadline to approach, be sure to finish it with a “performance as if working at your actual work environment”.
  2. Be sure to change your clothes and start working at your desk. Of course, you may love to wander around in the house with pajamas all day long, but starting to work with hang-out clothes may lower your motivation. In addition, it will be very motivating to change your pajamas and continue the routine of other households at home.
  3. Make yourself a workplace. Instead of working from sofa, couch or bed, prepare an ergonomic chair and a comfortable table. If these methods are applied, you will witness that your creativity increases with your performance and work motivation.
  4. Physiological endurance is as important as psychological endurance. Therefore, be sure to eat well to strengthen the immune system. Do not skip meals. Never skip breakfast, lunch and dinner.
  5. Motivate yourself by taking short breaks. If you have a house with a garden, you make sure that you make yourself a drink that you love, take a break and go out to your garden and breathe fresh air. This method will allow you to revive your mind and expand your perspective. If you live in the apartment, go out to the balcony and take a breath and take frequent breaks to your work. Try to move at regular intervals throughout the day. Research shows that frequent and short breaks throughout the day are more beneficial than short and long breaks. You can plan your day as 30 minutes working and 5 minutes break.
  6. These breaks should be to take a breathe, relax and move slightly. Reading the newspaper or browsing social media will cause your mind to get confused and move away from your work and decrease your performance.
  7. Plan your actions step by step. As you get things done, subtract from your list. Thus, you will not forget, and it will be motivating for you to see the work done.
  8. Do your work without feeling the sense of missing something or doing wrong compared to others' works, without worrying about anxiety and unfoundedness, start the day with confidence and take care to close the day like this.
  9. Social isolation sometimes creates a feeling of loneliness in people. You may not be experiencing this, but those around you may be. People can reach you easily, that is, because they know that you are at home, they may interfere with your job even if they are not aware of it. To avoid this, you may need to remind yourself, and then others, of your responsibility to work during working hours. Remember that this is not a holiday, but a compulsory process of working from home.
  10. When you are out of working hours, provided that you set your limits, make sure you have video and audio conversations with your colleagues, your spouse, and your friends.