With many people switching to remote work, also known as working at home, it’s time to discuss something important; preventing work at home burnout. It’s easy to avoid work burnout when you check into work at a specific time and clock out at the end of the day. When you switch to working from home, checking into and out of work isn’t as simple.

Many people have started to suffer from work at home burnout because they’re simply doing too much. It’s not easy to adjust from working outside of the home to working in your home. This transition will take many months to develop into a routine that works for you.

Since most of you don’t have months to figure out a work at home schedule, you’ve just been tossed into remote work due to the pandemic; these tips will help you avoid burnout.

Maintain Some Normalcy

Just because you’re working at home doesn’t mean you can forfeit that shower you look forward to every morning or getting dressed in work clothes each day. Be sure to maintain some of the same routines you had when you worked outside of the home to put your mind into work mode. If you returned home from work and got into comfortable clothing, be sure to do that when your work at home day has ended, too.

Schedule Breaks

When you worked outside of the home you have at least one lunch break and quite possibly a couple of shorter breaks during your workday. Make sure you schedule breaks throughout your work at home day. Be sure to remove yourself from your workspace area while you’re on break so that you’re less apt to touch any work and enjoy your fully break time. Consider taking a walk during your lunch break for a change of scenery to avoid work at home burnout.

Set Priorities

While working from home you’ll be in charge of your daily tasks and how you get those tasks done. Start each day setting priorities so that you can focus on the most important tasks first and leave the less important tasks for later. This will ensure you’re able to get the high priority tasks completed, without stressing out at the end of the day about whether you’ll have time for them or not.

Set Boundaries

Since you’re working at home full time, chances are your family or friends may try to stop in for a visit or interrupt you while you’re working. You must boundaries with your family and friends to ensure your work at home hours are respected. Place a sign on your workspace area that says ‘do not disturb’ or put your “office hours” up outside the office door so that your family will know to leave you alone during your work hours.

Following these steps we shared today will help you avoid work at home burnout by enabling you to have frequent breaks, a routine, and office hours to maintain some level of normalcy while working at home. You must treat this remote work option as a real full-time job so that you’re able to work during office hours and detach from work hours when the workday is finished.