Do you work away from home, or are you considering it? If you’re not prepared, it can be a lonely and remote experience. Here are five things you can do to improve your situation.
- Get into a routine – and stick to it. When you worked close to home, you probably had a daily routine. Now that you’re working away, your routine is in a mess. A routine gives us structure and enables us to organize ourselves more effectively. When you wake up in the morning, routine gives you a sense of order and accountability for yourself. Your routine also supports the development of good habits. Routine also provides a timetable for eating meals and healthier meals – we all know eating fast-food late at night is not the way to dine (and keep the pot-belly away)!Related: How to Make Working Away Enjoyable
- Your free time is valuable – so make use of it. Just because you don’t have a family to go home to this evening, it doesn’t mean that you have to give up your ‘free’ time to your employer. You’ll suffer from burn-out, eventually. Working away provides a perfect opportunity to do the things that, perhaps, seem only a luxury, when you’re in the routine of working close to home. I mean things like playing sports, going to the cinema, and my favorite – going to the pub with friends.
- Invest in good pillows and sleep-aids. If you’re like me then you don’t always get straight off to sleep away from your own bed. Restful sleep can be impossible to achieve. But just because your accommodation provides you with a pillow, it doesn’t mean you have to use it. Ditch the sawdust-filled bag! You deserve a good night’s rest so invest a little in yourself to get it. Are you cold at night due to over-aggressive AC or poor heating? Then get yourself a cosy electric-blanket.
- Re-consider your accommodation. When we work away, the first thing we tend to consider is ‘living out of a suitcase’, or using hotels – quite likely cheap hotels. There is nothing more depressing than living in cheap hotels. It’s easy to get bored with take-away dinners, and shopping TV channels, and bad mattresses, and noisy neighbors, and expensive laundry services, and that constant whine of the air-conditioner etc… Get the picture? How about renting a small serviced-apartment? Or even a non-serviced one. Create your own space… a place where you can sit in your underwear eating ice-cream and fart when you want to. A place to relax! The difference in costs between hotels and your own place may be better than you think – in fact it might be to your advantage.
- Get yourself setup on Skype, WhatsApp and all the tools to communicate with your family and friends back home. Talking with your loved ones, even for a few minutes each day, will remind you of what you’ve left behind, and also why you’re working away from home in the first place. You’re putting food on their plates, and clothes on their backs. Or making your folks proud. Whatever your reason is, stay connected to it.
