Working from home: what I make of it

Photograph: Connor Brook 

I’m a distance student (a separate post will be coming on this at some point), which means that I often find myself working at home most days. A lot of people think that having the opportunity to work from home every day is ‘luxurious’ and ‘freeing’ which, to some extent, is true. To outsiders, I’m not surrounded by colleague’s meaning that I don’t get interrupted by people talking when I’m trying to work. I also have the freedom to choose my own working hours and the flexibility to go out for a coffee or lunch whenever I want. I can even choose to work from the comfort of my own bed if I feel like it, although that's not something I actually do. 

There are definitely perks to the ‘working from home’ lifestyle, but if I could choose to wake up and go to an office on a regular basis, would I? 100% yes! In fact, I’m super envious of those that do work in an office and I actually view that as a ‘luxury’. After all, when you spend most days of the week on your own throughout the day, with literally zero human contact, it can all get a little too much. I feel like going to an office and being around people in your work day is so much healthier than being trapped inside on your own. At least when you’re in an environment with people in the same/similar situation as you, you can talk to each other about a particular problem or ask each other for encouragement/help, and just generally chit-chat on a break. When you’re on your own every day in your working environment, all of the challenges you face or general thoughts that arise are just kept to yourself, bottled up. Don’t get me wrong, some days I really appreciate that I’m alone whilst working on some of the things that I need full concentration on. But I can’t help but question if 1) being away from my institution and my academic network, coupled with 2) having only my home as my ‘office’ and my own company in the day, is healthy?

I’m not going to lie, I’ve found this lifestyle difficult to adapt to. I’m still trying to learn how to make the situation better for myself, but I still think I have a lot of figuring out to do. But here are a few tips that may be useful to some of you that are in a similar situation as me:

 Accept the bad days

The academic route, as I’ve said time and time again on this blog, can be a truly isolating journey. Fact. Especially when you’re in a situation where you have no choice but to live away from your university institution, like me.

Some days can just get a bit much, as there’s only so much isolation a person can take in each day. Therefore, when you’re feeling a bit negative about the situation, accept it and don’t feel bad for letting yourself feel a bit shit about it. Yes, you’ve chosen to go down the PhD/ research MA route, but it doesn’t mean that some days you won’t feel naturally rubbish about the isolating nature of it. Just make sure that you pick yourself up after a bad day, and focus on the job that needs to be done, and bring the positives back into your mindset.

Escape from your home temporarily

I know first-hand how much of a negative impact being in one place for an extended amount of time can have on both your health and productivity. I’ve definitely felt signs of cabin fever on my academic journey so far. I’m really trying my absolute hardest to, whenever I can, get out of my house and work somewhere else where there is people around. Even though I find it sometimes really hard to work in a coffee shop because of how loud it can get, I’m starting to make the effort to go there to work anyway because I find that when I work from home most days, it can start to make me feel really unproductive and restless anyway!

Push yourself to go out and work, even if working from home can sometimes seem the most easiest thing to do. I’ve found that when I separate myself from being at home all of the time, I feel much happier and more productive.

You don’t necessarily have to escape your home to go and work elsewhere. If you find that you work best when you’re not in such a loud environment, then simply separate yourself from the home environment temporarily by going for a walk, or something that will just get you away from it for a bit. It will make you feel a lot less ‘trapped’. I’ve also tried to go to public seminars relevant to my research at the local university too (I’m from Lancaster University but sometimes go to the University of Leeds events as Leeds is where I live). This has been a good opportunity for me to meet new people in a similar area to mine and learn new things, whilst simultaneously getting away from my usual environment.  I’m yet to find PhD students to connect with, though!!

Make your desk space nice

After all, you’ll be at that same desk a lot! Making the space in which you work nice is so important to keep your motivation and productivity at a maximum.

Commute to your university

Whether you’re a distance student or you live in the same city where your university is, definitely commute to your university when you can. Obviously if you live close to your university then this would be a very easy commute, but to anyone that lives away from your institution, try and travel when you can to your university so you feel re-connected with your academic network.

I’m going to try and make this a more regular thing, as sometimes I still find it to be a hard reality knowing that I’m a distance student. Whenever I go back to campus, I always meet up with as many people as I can, as well as my supervisor, just so I feel re-engaged with those that are in the academic environment – after all, it’s always great to catch up with your academic friends and feel more human again!

Stay connected with people closer to home

Even if you’re not around people in academia on a daily basis – like me, again! – remember that you have people to talk to closer to home, so make sure you keep connected to them and tell them how you feel. I’m lucky that I have a really supportive boyfriend, who is my rock! There will always be someone that you can trust and talk to if you ever feel like the isolating nature of working from home can get a bit much. Keep connected to your friends and family too, even if they don’t live near you anymore, as it will make you feel like you have more frequent human contact than what you actually do on a daily basis.

Based on my own experience, I’ve found that working from home can certainly be trying sometimes, especially because I’m such a social animal; but as with anything, somehow you have to find a way to make things easier for yourself – and there’s always a way to do that so you can feel happier. It’s so important to keep your head above the surface and to try and remain positive, even when the negatives can strike you sometimes. Remember, we have the choice to either focus on the negatives or to focus on the positives.

Let me know if any of you reading this have also struggled with working from home and the isolation aspect, I’d love to hear from you so we can support each other! If you have, what do you do to make the situation better for yourself? Comment below, or if you ever want to message me via Let’s Talk Academia’s Facebook page  to chat, please feel free to – I always love it when you guys get in touch J

Hope this is helpful in some way,

Emily 

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