How long have you been doing work from home (WFH) and staying at home during Coronavirus lockdown? How are you feeling? Chances are, being stuck inside and unable to go out for a quite long time is very boring. You cannot hang out with your friends or dine in your favourite restaurant. Probably, you even miss showing up late at work on Monday or chit-chatting with your coworkers.
In fact, for those social butterflies who love social interaction, being locked at home could lead to negative consequences such as slacking off and hampering productivity. There is no doubt that it could result in declined motivation and frustration too. The State of Boredom study published at NCBI found that boredom might trigger frustration or potentially depressed feelings, depending on task autonomy they handle. For instance, if the task autonomy is high, boredom could have a depressing effect. Meanwhile, when task autonomy is low, boredom relates to frustration and surfeited feeling.
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To prevent boredom from WFH, the study explained that it is essential to design work context in a way that contains sufficient skill variety, such as a task that allows employees to use different skills. Employees can also be assigned to task identity that allows them to perform a whole piece of work from beginning to end. Creating such a task could help combat the negative effect of boredom caused by WFH burnout.
What else can you do to fight boredom? Here they are:
The colours of your house play a major role in affecting the mood. Scientist Andrew Elliot suggested that colour can absolutely affect mood, behaviour, and stress levels. He also mentioned that colours can even change heart rate, blood pressure and respiration. For example, the red colour is associated with words of love as it stimulates heartbeat and breathing. Meanwhile, blue colour is associated with thinking, creativity and performance, or purple with royalty, luxury, and sophistication. Therefore, repainting your room will not only affect your mood but can also help strengthen your physical health. You can also show off your artistic talent as you repaint your room.
WFH means you can work anywhere of your choice but you are still restricted from going outside or staying too long outside amidst the pandemic. The freedom of remote work is limited. However, you can still make the work more fun by changing your work office at home. If you are tired and bored of working from your home desk, you can move to the balcony, kitchen, or living room. Otherwise, you can rearrange and set the room where you work to look like your office or look like a beach. Be creative!
Working from your sofa or kitchen without a proper desk and chair could result in body aches, pains, and fatigue. This can be eliminated by working out. Taking a break every 30 to 45 minutes and doing light exercises will help maintain your posture, health, and mood.
Another thing to do is to try something you have never done before. You can do a little experiment to spur your creativity. For example, you can start a cooking lesson, learn new languages, composing, learn musical instruments, make handcrafts, listen to music, practise gratitude, do yoga, or other things you desire. Trying something new is fun and who knows you will uncover a hidden talent.
Read also: Want a Career Change? 3 Tips to Find New Satisfying Job
