Thankfully, the great upheaval of the pandemic is now behind us, with most of the world having returned to normality. While working from home is the new normal for some, a lot of companies are pushing their workers to return to the office.
Whether you are now a home worker, or a commuter, the course of three lockdowns had an enormous impact on work practices. Many people quickly adapted to virtual living, picking up some bad habits along the way. Habits formed not only in home life, such as increased caffeine consumption, lack of exercise and a warped sleep schedule, but also during their working hours.
Below is our pick of the four worst work habits developed as a result of the pandemic, and some tips on how you can break them:
Poor Time Management
The work from home enforcement offered workers a sense of freedom through flexibility in start and finish times. Working late seemed to become a standard procedure for many, as few had any means to separate their work and home life. With no pressure from an office environment, it became easy to ignore time constraints and do away with a need for urgency.
Our tip: It’s important to maintain a schedule and not let deadlines slip. Prioritise daily tasks and set limits for the breaks you take. Most importantly, don’t work any later than you usually would when at the office.
Letting Emails Take Control
The pandemic taught us how to adapt to virtual life – with our means of daily conversation being constrained to video calls and emails. Whereas usually people may have only checked their emails at set times during the day, virtual working and a need for human contact led us to rely on constantly refreshing our inbox.
Our tip: In spite of deadlines, it’s easy to start your day by responding to emails and getting forced into completing small adhoc tasks you hadn’t originally planned to do. These can quickly mount up and take over your day. Reintroduce set times to manage your emails and take back control of your schedule.
Abandoning A Work Life Balance
Maintaining a healthy work life balance is significantly important. Unregulated work hours can lead to burnout, which will leave you feeling deflated and without energy to get through the day.
Our tip: Set up boundaries to stop your job from controlling your life and respect the breaks you take, and your days off.
Meetings, Meetings & Meetings
Frequent meetings were necessary during lockdown, and with no other means of interaction with colleagues, often welcomed. Unfortunately, the chore of all too frequent catch-up meetings has stuck for many workforces, including those who have returned to the office.
Too many meetings hinder productivity, and often dishearten employees. Industry leading companies such as Meta (formerly Facebook) have introduced “no-meeting-days” to stop their staff from becoming bogged down, allowing them uninterrupted time to focus on their responsibilities.
On the other hand, as meetings were so prominent throughout the pandemic, many people became attuned to multitasking and zoning out during them. As tempting as it may be to “Alt-Tab” and quickly check your other open windows, especially if you’re off camera, multitasking can have a huge impact further down the line, leaving you searching for information you seemingly missed whilst scrolling through your emails.
Our tip: In future, consider other means of catching up, such as emails and bulletin boards.
Let us know in the comments if you picked any bad habits up during the pandemic, and what you’re doing to phase them out.