Due to COVID 19 outbreak, most teachers opted for online teaching. This means working from home which is a huge deviation from our usual routines.
Therefore, I must say that this article is very timely for it dishes out delightful ways on how to reduce stress when you work from home.
“Wake up and get ready just like you’re going to work. If you stay in your slippers all day you will not be as productive.”–Elijah Schneider, CEO ‘founder of Modifly
So, as we join hands in stopping the spread of the coronavirus, working from home helps me extend my teaching expertise even though face-to-face instruction is not yet accessible at the moment.
Remember that we should not fall prey to self-isolation, or else it will affect our productivity as teachers. I know that many of us today are working from home and we seldom visit the school., which is more nostalgic.
Working from home, especially for teachers, is a bit overwhelming because nothing can beat the efficiency and accessibility of face-to-face learning modalities.
However, given our situation, let’s just make this a great opportunity to make education equitable and accessible to all instead of negatively viewing it as self-isolating or whatsoever.
Working from home when carried out systematically can offer us benefits in myriad ways. It can make us even more productive in a sense. You just have to tickle certain work strategies that help you navigate your online teaching with greater autonomy.
Therefore, you have to learn delightful ways of how to reduce stress when you work from home.
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6 Delightful Ways on How to Reduce Stress When You Work from Home
1. Establish a Quiet and Healthy Workspace
With our work responsibilities as online teachers, we deserve a peaceful and healthy workspace at home. A cluttered workspace is one of the ingredients of stress.
Well, I have to stay sane! I don’t want my workspace to be a nightmare. My workspace at home is designed to perk up my work habits.
I choose a place where I have privacy and I can move around. I arrange my things in a way that can give me full energy thus avoiding stress and exhaustion. Whatever makes me feel lively and cheerful, I put that in my workspace.
I consider myself so lucky to have my home office. I need it. I can’t lead a discussion nor facilitate a lesson in noisy and cluttered surroundings. Speaking from experience, having a spare room as a home office will cut off the overwhelming scenes of working with your family members around.
Of course, the “Don’t disturb sign” is on my door. So, it’s simply saying ‘sssshhhh quiet please’!
2. Organize Your Schedule and Create a Timetable
My work schedule is what I receive from the school admin and I have to balance it with my daily routines at home. More often, I receive a regular online teaching schedule and I have to stick with it because that spells out my responsibility as an educator.
It can be tough at first, but by keeping things and all activities organized, I am working towards being productive. By adapting to my daily schedule and by planning my daily routines, I stick to my organization tasks which give me direction to accomplish tasks daily.
Based on my consistent teaching schedule, I have created a plan and a timetable. Then I realized that it can be done if you are really serious with your work and never bothered with the challenges.
Your schedule gives details as to when you should be working. With that, it can be noted that you are handling your priorities seriously. It’s part of your daily motivation and you should be early in the set teaching platform. Hence, you will never wonder why you do this and that.
As an online teacher, I always set interactive activities for my learners. It’s part of the plan and it’s noted on my schedule.
My online classroom is as lively as a face-to-face learning delivery because I stick to my plan and timetable that it should be done. Moreover, I’m committed to doing it.
The more you organize your schedule, the more time you can prepare for your online instruction. It’s important. As Benjamin Franklin puts it, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
3. Improve Your Internet Connectivity
The internet has been widely used not only for personal use but also for work and business purposes. Make sure your WiFI can handle it. This is one of the key considerations in online teaching or working from home.
As you might have guessed, the causes why your connection appears slow all come from the objects responsible for signals. It could be the modem, signal strength on your cable line, distance from the nearest tower, or devices saturating your bandwidth.
Having sufficient access to internet connectivity will ensure a smooth flow of activities in an online instruction delivery.
The role of the internet in education has been highly valued. Your sessions, whether asynchronous or synchronous, require reliable internet access to ensure efficient instructional delivery.
4. Stay Optimistic and Work Altruistically
Remote work shouldn’t spell out less sociable activities. If this is the case, your work will become so stressful that you tend to get lost on track.
When working from home, we should stay positive and work conscientiously. so we can provide our students with quality learning opportunities.
As a teacher, I am confident that altruism is embedded in our passion to teach.
I know that working from home is not a daily occurrence for some as we are used to engaging in face-to-face instruction and working remotely is the first time ever. However, changes happen and we have to get along with it.
Even with the onset of COVID 19, which is already stressful, let’s grab the work from a home scenario with utmost optimism and use it as a great opportunity to become productive as ever.
We should love our work and show concern to our students by always crafting online activities that will fully motivate and engage them.
Just like us, our students have been through a lot too because of the situation we are in. But we need to move forward with optimism.
5. Dress Properly
A dress may sound nothing in relation to learning, but it interprets knowledge, respect, and command into the minds of students at first sight.
The impression of the proper outfit in good-looking clothes not only means thoughtfulness but leaves a sense of admiration in students and parents.
Even though you will not be in your physical classroom in the school, you still need to dress properly.
Facing your students on cam is a privilege. Therefore, you should not waste it by looking lousy and unmotivated.
In the eyes of students, teachers who dress appropriately represent competency. They come more like enough to establish authority and respectability. This is a strong character that influences trust and good behavior in students.
It doesn’t mean that you should wear a suit or very formal attire. On my end, to make my students feel that I am always around just like before when the lockdown wasn’t on the scene yet, I wear my school uniform.
Practically, it won’t waste my time looking for the combination each day. I just feel comfortable with my school uniform and it signifies me being a teacher.
6. Request Assistance from Your School ICT Expert on the Onset
I know that we are capable of doing certain things and there are areas that are not of our expertise. I am honest about it that I need to go through certain personal and professional development courses in terms of technology.
Therefore, I am just being practical in tapping the expertise of our school ICT expert to set up my online classroom.
I fully understand that some tools and technologies require training and I am very willing to learn them to make teaching and learning happen.
I call this strategic guidance. Furthermore, this is to ensure how should I go about my days in online teaching.
But I know that this is not for everyone. I am definitely aware that most teachers today are tech-savvy professionals who are well-adept to the essentials of technology.
Well, my motivation is, engaging my learners through online teaching and making them productive can always be done in whatever modalities of learning delivery to be used.
Considering the current education climate we are facing, let’s tap into the myriad benefits of collaboration in order to stay sane while working remotely and embrace the online community with confidence.
CONCLUSION
With all the tips and tricks in staying productive while working from home, I like best the essence of being optimistic and working altruistically. This captures our sincerity in the teaching profession.
You don’t need to allot a large amount of time to break the monotony, a few minutes from time to time will do the trick. The thing is to shift your focus to something that promotes a happy heart and a confident mind. Being happy decreases stress and offers us a calm bearing.
Absolutely, there is a huge difference between online teaching and face-to-face learning modality.
However, to be successful in the online community, I should be open to doing things differently. This will make my new work journey less stressful and daunting.
Let me know your thoughts on this. Feel free to comment below on your amazing tips and tricks in order to stay productive while working from home. So, how do you kick out stress?
