5 strategies to a healthy work-life balance for remote workers
Some can easily switch off, while others keep an eye on work notifications long after they stopped working. How do you establish a work-life balance as a remote worker? Our team knows!
As a remote worker, you’re expected to have a super-strong focus muscle.
During a workday, there's always time to read that article, find the next song, or send a quick message to friends. There’s no supervisor or “I shouldn’t be doing this in the office” guilt that drags you out of the rabbit hole.
Once the workday is over, you're tasked with successfully switching off work mode. You open Netflix and prepare to unwind … when a Slack notification appears and your plans get interrupted. 🥴
It's a challenge to strictly work during work times and unplug during personal time, especially when you're working from home by yourself.
So how do we balance life and work when they’re all up in each other’s business?
Some of our remote team members have mastered this art! We've bundled their advice into five work-life balance strategies that you can implement too.
After running a survey, built with MailerLite’s landing page builder 💁♀️, we discovered that our team’s overall work-life balance is pretty good!
The majority of the people are content, and 42% are super happy.
The parents of The Remote Company especially valued their work-life balance much better because they can work remotely. For Leopold, going remotely had a huge impact on his work-life balance.
We care about families
At The Remote Company, parents with kids under 12 get a monthly paid day off. Fathers with newborns get one month off, and mothers get three months of paid leave. Anyone who becomes a parent through childbirth or adoption gets 1,000 USD to support their family.
Curious where I (Megan, the writer of this article) stand?
I belong to the 8% that sits in the middle. I’m most productive in coffee shops, surrounded by buzzing noises and other remote workers typing away.
Due to the restrictions, I now spend most of my week at home alone. Over time, my workweeks morphed into one continuous cycle where I never completely shut off.
Luckily, I now had my coworker’s advice to learn from. Let’s dive into their best work-life balance strategies!
Most employees walk out of an office with a sense of accomplishment. You might not have completed all your tasks, but with your computer at work, there’s not much you can do anyway.
For remote employees, this feeling is harder to achieve. After all, you can always do a bit more work—your laptop is right there!
A key component of a healthy work-life balance is to separate work and personal, know when you’ve done enough, and allow your mind to switch off work mode.
Strategies to feel accomplished:
According to this BBC article, the best time to concentrate and handle stressful events is different for everyone. Some people are more present and energetic in the morning, while others peak after dinner.
For example, Veronika likes slow mornings and productive afternoons.
I'm on Veronika's team as well (well, minus the workout). My performance peaks towards the end of the day, or even at night. I’ve written entire blogs in the evenings from 8 PM to 12 AM when most of my teammates were offline and there was no sunshine to fuel my indoor anxiety.
My colleague Dalia plans most of her work in the mornings.
As you can read, everyone has their peak moments. You might also find that working mornings and evenings suits you much better than the classic 9-5.
That’s the beauty of remote work!
How to optimize your concentration:
Many studies have found that routines stimulate mental health by reducing stress. The fewer choices your brain needs to make during a day, the happier it is. And the less stress you have, the better your focus will be.
With remote work, there’s no office desk waiting for your arrival. Your entire workday can be done from the comfort of your own bed (we’ve all been there). Yet not surprisingly, the remote colleagues that did follow a routine also rated their work-life balance above par.
Magdalena, Software Engineer at Ycode, starts every morning at 7 AM with an hour of exercise, meditation, and plant-momming. She then works until 1 PM, lunches for half an hour, and finishes work around 6 PM.
For Matias, a dedicated home office does the trick to maintain his work-life balance.
Another strategy is to start the day doing something you love, before diving into work emails and chat messages. This will set you off on the right track.
For example, Vanessa wakes up 2-3 hours before her shift.
These are examples of routines from remote workers that are mainly working from home. However, we also have a lot of frequent travelers!
Sabina is one of our "digital nomads". She has surfed in Bali, danced salsa in Colombia, and hiked the Peruvian Andes (without taking any leave days).
To have a good work-life balance while constantly on the go, she advises:
For the optimal work-life balance:
I’m a tab hoarder and permanently have anywhere from 5 to 25 tabs open.
You’re probably either going “oh gosh, me too” or “you’re one of THOSE!” now.
Needless to say, this tab chaos was the first action point to restore my work-life balance. I created a Todoist board (five boards are free to create), collected all tasks, and organized them into different categories.
At The Remote Company, we use Notion for task management, but I find it helpful to have my own space where I can also add reminders, smaller to-dos, articles to read, etc.
I now work on one task at a time, and only open the tabs needed for that specific task. To increase my focus, I took notes from Content Writer Erin: I used a Pomodoro timer to work in intervals. When a personal to-do pops up in my head, I save it for the tomato break.
At the end of the workday, I close all work tabs. When I continue to browse the Internet, I’m not tempted to side-eye the Slack tab. 👀
For a focused workday:
As much as social media can distract us during working hours, work tasks can also slide into our personal time!
To physically and mentally end her workday, Amy snoozes her Slack notifications between 7 PM and 8 AM.
She also has a personal and work laptop (psst, that’s part of our employee benefits). She never switches them, even when she feels lazy and her work laptop is within arm's reach.
You can also use a website blocker to sign off completely. This is what Agathe does.
Matias has advice for working with colleagues in different time zones.
Furthermore, he makes it a point to leave his workplace. Just mentally turning off doesn't work for him, so he physically leaves the place where he worked.
That being said, the above strategies always sound much easier in theory. For Maria, reality looks a bit different.
To restore her work-life balance, she likes to book weekend getaways every few months. And laptops are strictly forbidden during these trips! Instead, she'll dive into activities like the one below: a sandal-making workshop she attended for her quarterly paid, creative day!
Kavan finds it difficult to fully switch off as well.
How to really enjoy non-work time:
We’re curious to know what type of work-life balance strategies you use as a remote worker. Add your insights and examples in the comments. We’re looking forward to reading them! 👏
During a workday, there's always time to read that article, find the next song, or send a quick message to friends. There’s no supervisor or “I shouldn’t be doing this in the office” guilt that drags you out of the rabbit hole.
Once the workday is over, you're tasked with successfully switching off work mode. You open Netflix and prepare to unwind … when a Slack notification appears and your plans get interrupted. 🥴
It's a challenge to strictly work during work times and unplug during personal time, especially when you're working from home by yourself.
So how do we balance life and work when they’re all up in each other’s business?
Some of our remote team members have mastered this art! We've bundled their advice into five work-life balance strategies that you can implement too.
After running a survey, built with MailerLite’s landing page builder 💁♀️, we discovered that our team’s overall work-life balance is pretty good!
The majority of the people are content, and 42% are super happy.
The parents of The Remote Company especially valued their work-life balance much better because they can work remotely. For Leopold, going remotely had a huge impact on his work-life balance.
We care about families
At The Remote Company, parents with kids under 12 get a monthly paid day off. Fathers with newborns get one month off, and mothers get three months of paid leave. Anyone who becomes a parent through childbirth or adoption gets 1,000 USD to support their family.
Curious where I (Megan, the writer of this article) stand?
I belong to the 8% that sits in the middle. I’m most productive in coffee shops, surrounded by buzzing noises and other remote workers typing away.
Due to the restrictions, I now spend most of my week at home alone. Over time, my workweeks morphed into one continuous cycle where I never completely shut off.
Luckily, I now had my coworker’s advice to learn from. Let’s dive into their best work-life balance strategies!
Most employees walk out of an office with a sense of accomplishment. You might not have completed all your tasks, but with your computer at work, there’s not much you can do anyway.
For remote employees, this feeling is harder to achieve. After all, you can always do a bit more work—your laptop is right there!
A key component of a healthy work-life balance is to separate work and personal, know when you’ve done enough, and allow your mind to switch off work mode.
Strategies to feel accomplished:
According to this BBC article, the best time to concentrate and handle stressful events is different for everyone. Some people are more present and energetic in the morning, while others peak after dinner.
For example, Veronika likes slow mornings and productive afternoons.
I'm on Veronika's team as well (well, minus the workout). My performance peaks towards the end of the day, or even at night. I’ve written entire blogs in the evenings from 8 PM to 12 AM when most of my teammates were offline and there was no sunshine to fuel my indoor anxiety.
My colleague Dalia plans most of her work in the mornings.
As you can read, everyone has their peak moments. You might also find that working mornings and evenings suits you much better than the classic 9-5.
That’s the beauty of remote work!
How to optimize your concentration:
Many studies have found that routines stimulate mental health by reducing stress. The fewer choices your brain needs to make during a day, the happier it is. And the less stress you have, the better your focus will be.
With remote work, there’s no office desk waiting for your arrival. Your entire workday can be done from the comfort of your own bed (we’ve all been there). Yet not surprisingly, the remote colleagues that did follow a routine also rated their work-life balance above par.
Magdalena, Software Engineer at Ycode, starts every morning at 7 AM with an hour of exercise, meditation, and plant-momming. She then works until 1 PM, lunches for half an hour, and finishes work around 6 PM.
For Matias, a dedicated home office does the trick to maintain his work-life balance.
Another strategy is to start the day doing something you love, before diving into work emails and chat messages. This will set you off on the right track.
For example, Vanessa wakes up 2-3 hours before her shift.
These are examples of routines from remote workers that are mainly working from home. However, we also have a lot of frequent travelers!
Sabina is one of our "digital nomads". She has surfed in Bali, danced salsa in Colombia, and hiked the Peruvian Andes (without taking any leave days).
To have a good work-life balance while constantly on the go, she advises:
For the optimal work-life balance:
I’m a tab hoarder and permanently have anywhere from 5 to 25 tabs open.
You’re probably either going “oh gosh, me too” or “you’re one of THOSE!” now.
Needless to say, this tab chaos was the first action point to restore my work-life balance. I created a Todoist board (five boards are free to create), collected all tasks, and organized them into different categories.
At The Remote Company, we use Notion for task management, but I find it helpful to have my own space where I can also add reminders, smaller to-dos, articles to read, etc.
I now work on one task at a time, and only open the tabs needed for that specific task. To increase my focus, I took notes from Content Writer Erin: I used a Pomodoro timer to work in intervals. When a personal to-do pops up in my head, I save it for the tomato break.
At the end of the workday, I close all work tabs. When I continue to browse the Internet, I’m not tempted to side-eye the Slack tab. 👀
For a focused workday:
As much as social media can distract us during working hours, work tasks can also slide into our personal time!
To physically and mentally end her workday, Amy snoozes her Slack notifications between 7 PM and 8 AM.
She also has a personal and work laptop (psst, that’s part of our employee benefits). She never switches them, even when she feels lazy and her work laptop is within arm's reach.
You can also use a website blocker to sign off completely. This is what Agathe does.
Matias has advice for working with colleagues in different time zones.
Furthermore, he makes it a point to leave his workplace. Just mentally turning off doesn't work for him, so he physically leaves the place where he worked.
That being said, the above strategies always sound much easier in theory. For Maria, reality looks a bit different.
To restore her work-life balance, she likes to book weekend getaways every few months. And laptops are strictly forbidden during these trips! Instead, she'll dive into activities like the one below: a sandal-making workshop she attended for her quarterly paid, creative day!
Kavan finds it difficult to fully switch off as well.
How to really enjoy non-work time:
We’re curious to know what type of work-life balance strategies you use as a remote worker. Add your insights and examples in the comments. We’re looking forward to reading them! 👏