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.”
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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
2 min
More than 280 modern and contemporary artworks will be up for sale Friday at Christie’s Post-War to Present auction in New York.
The live sale, which will be held at Christie’s Rockefeller Center sale room, has a low estimate of more than US$27 million and will be led by Frank Stella’s Abra I, 1968, which is estimated to fetch between US$1.2 million and US$1.8 million, according to a news release from Christie’s.
“Abra I is a fantastic example by Stella, a large-scale canvas from the protractor series,” says head of sale Julian Ehrlich. “It engages so many crucial aspects of his practice, including scale, geometry and colour, and has appeal to established post-war collectors and others who are just coming to historical art.”
Ehrlich, who has overseen the semiannual Post-War to Present sale since its first March 2022 auction, says his goal in curating the sale was to “assemble a thoughtful and dynamic auction” with works from both popular and lesser-known artists.
“With Post-War to Present, we really have a unique opportunity to share new artistic narratives at auction. It’s a joy to highlight new artists or artists who have been overlooked historically and be a part of that conversation in a larger art world context,” he says.
Christie’s
Works from a number of female artists who were pioneers of post-war abstract painting, including Helen Frankenthaler, Lynne Drexler, and Hedda Sterne, will be included. The auction will also include pieces from a group of Black artists from the 1960s to present day, including Noah Purifoy, Jack Whitten, and David Hammons, in addition to a Christie’s debut from Joe Overstreet (Untitled, 1970) and an auction debut from Rick Lowe (Untitled, 2021).
“The story of art is necessarily diverse,” Ehrlich says. “The sale itself is broad, with more than 280 works this season, and it has been fun to think through artists inside and outside of the canon that we can put forward as highlights of the auction.”
In addition to Abra I, other top lots include Tom Wesselmann’s Seascape #29, 1967, (with an estimate between US$800,000 and US$1.2 million); Keith Haring’s Andy Mouse, 1986, (also with an estimate between US$800,000 and US$1.2 million); and Jack Whitten’s Garden in Bessemer, 1986 (with an estimate between US$700,000 andUS$1 million).
“I think of the Post-War to Present sale as being especially dynamic … in the best case, even for someone deeply embedded in the market, there should be works which surprise and delight and are unexpected, as well as celebrated market-darlings and art-historical greats,” Ehrlich says.
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
