For many of us, the idea of occasional works from home day is all fun and games. Then something happens that changes all that completely. Maybe your employer needs to downscale office space and moves their workforce to remote work, or the only job you can find is freelance remote work, or a worldwide pandemic hits and forces you, everyone else, into quarantine. Suddenly you start to feel trapped in what was a luxury.
Having a job where you can work from home is definitely something you can be grateful for. After all, the one thing that holds many girls back from dressing up is that they can’t do it all the time because of their job.
What many girls don’t realize is that being cooped up with your home and work in the same space indefinitely can start to mess with your mind a bit. You can start to get anxious, maybe looking for distractions, and actually yearn to go back to the office.
A big aspect that many people don’t realize is that the social aspect of an office can be quite motivating. You can work hard at finishing a block of work and then meet a work friend for coffee in the break room or maybe a coffee shop.
It doesn’t matter whether you have a whole house to yourself or if you are stuck in an apartment with roommates who are getting your nerves. The good news is that Pink Femme is here to help you get through it all. Plus you will get to practice a little femme self-care in the process.
Read on for 12 tips on staying sane when working from home whether it is for a career shift or because of social distancing.
1. Create A Dedicated Workspace
This is something that was key for me when I started working from home. When you take the odd work from home day as a novelty, it’s easy to want to curl up in bed with your laptop.
Sure, while this may seem like a great idea in theory while you are sitting at your desk at work with the aircon set too cold, but in practice, you will likely slowly slide your way down your propped-up pillows in under your duvet, and close your eyes for a mid-day snooze. Not exactly your most productive pose.
Staying in bed is probably just about the worst idea when you work from home. This is why it is important that you create a designated work from home space. It doesn’t matter whether that is a desk in your bedroom, the kitchen or dining room table, or using the couch in your living room, find a space that works best for you. Though I wouldn’t be inclined to use the couch. You just want to be sure that you keep sleep and work spaces separate.
If you’re working from home for a long period of time, chances are you might start feeling stifled being in the same place each day. What you can do is try working from different areas of your home to create the illusion of change. What I sometimes do is mix and match. For instance, putting a dining room chair at the kitchen table can make that feel different enough to be a workspace.
The chances are that the first spot you choose might not be your most productive work from home layout. So by switching things around every couple of days you will be able to refine where your best work space at home is.
That said, there is no need to go to extremes, Les Nessman style, and demarcate office walls and a door on the floor with colored tape.
2. Multitask With Masks
Before you misunderstand me, I am not referring to those social distancing face masks that people wear while out and about.
When you are stressed out with your work while stuck in your work from home space, you can multitask with some self-care. So before you settle down at your laptop, smooth a clay mask onto your face or maybe apply a hair mask.
That way you work on yourself while you work from home. It is a great way to lower your work stress with something you can’t get away with doing at the office.
3. Other Skin Care Or New Makeup Ideas
There is one perk of not having to see any of your co-workers for a while. No, I am not talking about shrinking back into your introverted shell.
Some skincare holy grail treatments can leave you looking far from your best during that period of time while they work their magic.
When you use a product like Retinol things basically get worse before they get better. Retinol can cause your skin to become red and flakey. Obviously you don’t want to be seen with red, flaking skin. Therefore, working from home is your chance to give it a try and come out of the other side without your coworkers witnessing your peeling skin.
Another option is to use the time you are working at home to experiment with new makeup looks that you could wear to the office. If the look comes out less than stellar, nobody will be around to witness it.
Also, unless you are doing a mask or other skin care treatment, always do your makeup before you start work just as you would if you were going to the office. Doing your makeup before you start work will help you get in the right mind frame for productivity. It does for me.
4. Create A Special Playlist
The right playlist can help to keep you lively and focused throughout your workday. Create a designated work-from-home playlist.
Make your play list something that is work specific. For example what I do is that I have some Zen like music for when I am doing a block of writing work. I will switch to a cafe-jazz playlist when I take a coffee break away from my desk. Then when I hit the treadmill it will be my pump-up workout music.
Having a different playlist for each of these different activities is what helps me get in the zone, especially when it comes to working. Play around with different playlists to see what works best for you.
5. Work Break Face Massage
On a day when you have been doing skincare treatments you could turn a normal work break into something special like a face massage.
Even if you have work to do so a full-on spa day is not an option you can still relax and show your skin some love. Apply a few drops of oil to your fingertips, then massage your facial skin with upward strokes.
When I do have my makeup on, what I sometimes do is pull out my foam roller during a 5-minute work break and work any tension out of my legs and glutes.
6. Try A New Nail Color
Does it seem like you never seem to have the opportunity to paint your nails for work?
Well, there’s no better time than using a work-from-home day to paint your nails. Maybe even try on a new nail polish color and give you nails time to dry while you type away at your laptop.
If you ever wanted to try something trendy like sea glass nails, now would be a perfect time to try.
If you have some time after your workday is over you can practice nail art.
7. Set Small Deadlines
Something that I realized early on when working from home is that it is very easy to get distracted.
It is so easy to get sucked into hours of TV shows, snack breaks, YouTube, or social media. What you need to do is set your own deadlines. Use a few minutes of those activities as a reward system so that you get something you want after finishing an important task.
Just be mindful that reward time is tied to the size of task you finished. A 5-minute task does not justify a 3-hour TV break.
8. Light Some Candles
While it is true that you may not be able to burn candles at the office, you certainly can when your workspace is your own living room.
Make your home workspace somewhere that you will want to be by starting with burning a candle that smells downright amazing.
There’s nothing wrong with a vase of fresh cut flowers either.
9. Moisturize Your Hands
By the time you get to the end of a day at your computer, you might notice that your hands are in need of some loving care. All of that almost constant handwashing and sanitizing with alcohol-based sanitizers can really dry out your skin.
Keep a good, moisturizing, hand cream next to your workspace and apply throughout the day. You can also try applying hand cream liberally before bed and slipping on a pair of soft cotton gloves to help lock in all that fabulous moisture.
10. Get Dressed For Success
I know that it is tempting to lounge around in your pajamas or a frumpy, loose-fitting tracksuit without so much as a speck of makeup on when you work from home. However, This is not the best practice for long-term productivity. I’m not saying that you need to get so dolled up that it looks like you’re about to step onto the cover of Vogue magazine or head out to a nightclub.
At the very least you should make the effort to change into a neat looking outfit, brush your hair, and apply at least a bit of mascara and lipstick each day. These little actions will help keep you mentally sharp if you are working from home for an extended period.
So many of you girls tell me that you would love to be able to dress femme every day so that you can live the way you feel on the inside. Surely you are not going to waste the opportunity that working from home is putting in your lap.
11. Get Your Beauty Sleep
This is something that is very easy to neglect when you are at home for extended periods of time. After a long day, it is so easy to while away the evening and night hours on Netflix or social media. All you end up doing is loading up on your fatigue.
Use the opportunity to get enough beauty sleep so that you can get up a little earlier and feel refreshed. This will give you the time to get femme clothing, makeup, and hair on point, ready for the next day working from home.
12. Get Moving
One of the things that I see most girls neglecting is getting in their daily steps when they start working from home for an extended period of time.
You need to make a conscious effort to get in your recommended feminine daily steps in while staying inside. Refresh your memory with the article I wrote about how to feminize your walk and put the tips into practice in between your blocks of work. If you have heels, get some feminine steps in wearing your heels. If you don’t own any heels yet, that’s ok just practice your walk.
Start your day with a little bit of yoga/pilates before you get ready for work and do another couple of minutes after work at the end of the day to create a clear separation between work and your personal life.
Some Work From Home Options
What can you do if you have been sidelined at home and your employer has not set up any work from home options for you. Is there a way to set up something you can do from home and get to work dressed up femme like you have dreamed of for ages?
The answer is a resounding yes. Here are three options that I can think of already:
- The first one is to freelance via remote work agencies like iWriter and Upwork. iWriter puts you in touch with people that need a writer to knock out a couple of hundred words on a specific topic. Upwork also looks for writers and virtual personal assistants and all sorts of remote skills.
- The second is to start your own blog where you write about a topic that interests you. If you have never blogged before and have no idea where to start, check out the YouTube channel called Income School. Watching those videos taught me some of the skills that I used to set up Pink Femme.
- If both of those feels like too much for you to handle right at the moment, do not despair. If you look down at the bottom of the Pink Femme page you will see a link to a page that explains how to apply to write a guest post on Pink Femme. That way you can try out how it feels to work from home in a fully feminine way for just a single day.
Maybe you will feel inspired to take the step into working from home in a way that allows you to live your dream of living fully femme even while you are working.
Thanks for your advice Edith….. Trabajo on it.