Work From Home? 6 Ways to Stay Focused and Avoid Burnout
Remote workdays are leaving us with wandering attention spans. Here, tips to regain your WFH focus.
2 min
AT FIRST, the work-from-home life had the elemental thrills of a snow day, with its languid commutes from bed to sofa. But with Covid-19 variants snuffing out the light at the end of the tunnel and companies postponing returns to the workplace, W.F.H. is becoming W.T.F. for many.
As we edge toward remote-work burnout, it’s getting harder to stay focused and productive. Even our diversions are digital—“breaks” to play phone games bloat into 30-minute lapses—exacerbating our lack of human connection and our minds’ tendencies to wander. Eugene Kim, the Los Angeles-based founder of design brand Dims., is deeply Zoom fatigued. “There’s so many little physical and visual things that we communicate to each other non-verbally that are just lost,” he said. Atlanta-based Eric Heyward, COO of watch brand Talley & Twine, similarly longs for water-cooler conversations that let him gauge his colleagues’ moods and adjust “the tone of my next Slack message.”
According to Kirsten Clacey, a remote-work expert who co-founded the Remote Coaches, spontaneous interactions can help combat the unfocused WFH malaise some folks are feeling. To create “playful moments,” she recommends beginning each meeting with five minutes spent “connecting as humans.” But you also have to carve out a personal life within your work life. Here, other expert advice.
1. To dodge the feeling your entire life is “condensed into the computer,” Ms. Clacey suggests getting into nature daily. A walk along the ocean would be ideal, because “awe and wonder have neurological benefits.” But even a few trees will do.
2. Create a separate, Pavlovian space for work mode—possible even if you have no spare room, said Liam Martin, co-organizer and CMO of remote-work conference Running Remote. No door to close? “I’ve even seen people…have a different set of ‘work’ headphones,” he said.
3. Try to spend no more than 25% of your workday in meetings to maximize your productivity, said Mr. Martin, who also co-founded the productivity app Time Doctor.
4. Clearly defined work hours are a key burnout barrier. Delete work email and IM apps from your phone so you “don’t turn working at home into living at work,” Mr. Martin said.
5. Plan weekly adventures (e.g., gallery hopping one night), said Laura Vanderkam, author of “The New Corner Office: How the Most Successful People Work from Home.”
“A lot of burnout is about feeling there is nothing to look forward to.”
6. Avoid miring yourself entirely in banal tasks. Spend 30 to 60 minutes a day doing the work that first drew you to your career, Ms. Vanderkam said—the “cool part you’d tell people about at cocktail parties, if anyone was still going to cocktail parties.”
Copyright 2020, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. LEARN MORE
Chris Dixon, a partner who led the charge, says he has a ‘very long-term horizon’
Americans now think they need at least $1.25 million for retirement, a 20% increase from a year ago, according to a survey by Northwestern Mutual
Vacationers scratching their travel itch this season are sending prices through the roof. Here’s how some are making trade-offs.
3 min
Capri Coffer socks away $600 a month to help fund her travels. The Atlanta health-insurance account executive and her husband couldn’t justify a family vacation to the Dominican Republic this summer, though, given what she calls “astronomical” plane ticket prices of $800 each.
The price was too high for younger family members, even with Coffer defraying some of the costs.
Instead, the family of six will pile into a rented minivan come August and drive to Hilton Head Island, S.C., where Coffer booked a beach house for $650 a night. Her budget excluding food for the two-night trip is about $1,600, compared with the $6,000 price she was quoted for a three-night trip to Punta Cana.
“That way, everyone can still be together and we can still have that family time,” she says.
With hotel prices and airfares stubbornly high as the 2023 travel rush continues—and overall inflation squeezing household budgets—this summer is shaping up as the season of travel trade-offs for many of us.
Average daily hotel rates in the top 25 U.S. markets topped $180 year-to-date through April, increasing 9.9% from a year ago and 15.6% from 2019, according to hospitality-data firm STR.
Online travel sites report more steep increases for summer ticket prices, with Kayak pegging the increase at 35% based on traveler searches. (Perhaps there is no more solid evidence of higher ticket prices than airline executives’ repeated gushing about strong demand, which gives them pricing power.)
The high prices and economic concerns don’t mean we’ll all be bunking in hostels and flying Spirit Airlines with no luggage. Travellers who aren’t going all-out are compromising in a variety of ways to keep the summer vacation tradition alive, travel agents and analysts say.
“They’re still out there and traveling despite some pretty real economic headwinds,” says Mike Daher, Deloitte’s U.S. transportation, hospitality and services leader. “They’re just being more creative in how they spend their limited dollars.”
For some, that means a cheaper hotel. Hotels.com says global search interest in three-star hotels is up more than 20% globally. Booking app HotelTonight says nearly one in three bookings in the first quarter were for “basic” hotels, compared with 27% in the same period in 2019.
For other travellers, the trade-offs include a shorter trip, a different destination, passing on premium seat upgrades on full-service airlines or switching to no-frills airlines. Budget-airline executives have said on earnings calls that they see evidence of travellers trading down.
Deloitte’s 2023 summer travel survey, released Tuesday, found that average spending on “marquee” trips this year is expected to decline to $2,930 from $3,320 a year ago. Tighter budgets are a factor, he says.
Too much demand
Wendy Marley is no economics teacher, but says she’s spent a lot of time this year refreshing clients on the basics of supply and demand.
The AAA travel adviser, who works in the Boston area, says the lesson comes up every time a traveler with a set budget requests help planning a dreamy summer vacation in Europe.
“They’re just having complete sticker shock,” she says.
Marley has become a pro at Plan B destinations for this summer.
For one client celebrating a 25th wedding anniversary with a budget of $10,000 to $12,000 for a five-star June trip, she switched their attention from the pricey French Riviera or Amalfi Coast to a luxury resort on the Caribbean island of St. Barts.
To Yellowstone fans dismayed at ticket prices into Jackson, Wyo., and three-star lodges going for six-star prices, she recommends other national parks within driving distance of Massachusetts, including Acadia National Park in Maine.
For clients who love the all-inclusive nature of cruising but don’t want to shell out for plane tickets to Florida, she’s been booking cruises out of New York and New Jersey.
Not all of Marley’s clients are tweaking their plans this summer.
Michael McParland, a 78-year-old consultant in Needham, Mass., and his wife are treating their family to a luxury three-week Ireland getaway. They are flying business class on Aer Lingus and touring with Adventures by Disney. They initially booked the trip for 2020, so nothing was going to stand in the way this year.
McParland is most excited to take his teen grandsons up the mountain in Northern Ireland where his father tended sheep.
“We decided a number of years ago to give our grandsons memories,” he says. “Money is money. They don’t remember you for that.”
Fare first, then destination
Chima Enwere, a 28-year old piano teacher in Fayetteville, N.C., is also headed to the U.K., but not by design.
Enwere, who fell in love with Europe on trips the past few years, let airline ticket prices dictate his destination this summer to save money.
He was having a hard time finding reasonable flights out of Raleigh-Durham, N.C., so he asked for ideas in a Facebook travel group. One traveler found a round-trip flight on Delta to Scotland for $900 in late July with reasonable connections.
He was budgeting $1,500 for the entire trip—he stays in hostels to save money—but says he will have to spend more given the pricier-than-expected plane ticket.
“I saw that it was less than four digits and I just immediately booked it without even asking questions,” he says.
Australian lenders hope no-interest cards can arrest a decline in usage and attract younger customers.
A “starchitect” name adds to a building’s allure—and how much an apartment may sell for.
