How to ‘commute’ when you’re working from home

There’s no real need to drive around the block to pretend you’re commuting to help maintain a sense of normalcy during the coronavirus outbreak. But if you’re still adjusting to suddenly working from home, creating some structure and routine can help make this all a bit easier.

Psychologists told Well and Good a fake commute can give displaced office workers a sense of control. It’s all about separating work from our personal lives at a time when that’s difficult. For some folks, like parents with school-age children at home all the time, that separation is pretty much impossible. But with an emphasis on faking it, you can attempt to feel better about each day, even if it’s something small, like zoning out for five minutes.

It’s mostly mental tricks, but for anyone working from home and craving more of a transition from home life to work life while in the same small space all day, we asked around to get an idea of what people are doing to restore some semblance of normalcy. 

Here are some “commute” ideas for the journey from the bedroom to living room or kitchen table: 

• First things first: Set the coffee maker. Before anything, start brewing coffee. By the time you get ready to start your work day, a cup is ready for you. Since you’re still bleary-eyed while making it, you’ll be thanking your past self for doing you a solid. 

• If you normally listen to podcasts/scroll through Twitter/read email on the bus or train into work, give yourself 20 minutes or so before the clock starts to do that, just as you did before the pandemic.

• Go out on a deck/balcony, look out a window, or talk to your plants/colleagues (AKA your children, roommates, partner, or pets) before you start the work day. You never woke up and immediately transported to your office before working at home. So create a bit of space, especially if you’d normally venture outside to get to your car, the bus stop, or if you’d walk the whole way to the office.

• Treat your workspace like you would the office. Putting away cords, mice, and your computer at the end of the day instead of leaving it out for the next day delineates a clear end of the day. Then in the morning you can enjoy the ritual of setting up your workspace just like you used to do in the office.

• Put on shoes, even if it’s just flip flops. Put on a bra. Take a shower. Some people are still getting fully dressed, but you can decide how far you want to take the charade.

• Set a Pomodoro method timer throughout the day to get things done even if the dishes are calling, a repair project is sitting in front of you, or you just want to crawl back into bed.

• Stay out of the bedroom. If you have another room or space to work, get in the habit to work away from your bed. It’ll make it so much more rewarding at the end of the day.

• Rearrange the furniture. Your living space was arranged for a certain way of life that doesn’t really exist anymore. So rethink what you want in your new “office.” Maybe that means hauling out the TV and video game consoles and keeping those in the bedroom, making where you sleep the designated chill out and hang room. Now the living room can become a space focused on productivity. 

• Keep your work computer off all weekend. You’ll still be on your phone most of the weekend, so the temptation to check work emails or Slack can be hard to ignore, but it’s harder to get sucked into extra work hours during your time off with your laptop securely shut.