It’s been over half a year for most offices now teleworking, and though we’re grateful for the opportunity to stay home, we’ve become increasingly in need of more structure within these changes to the normal routine. Letting the steam off from the day with the car drive home from work, music blasting, windows down feels all too far away, like a distance memory fading. So, as we adjust to the new norm, (for those of us that teleworking is still possible and encouraged) here are some tips for how to shut down your engines and make a new commute from your designated workspace to your designated ‘home from work’ area:

Set work hours and stick to them
- Setting work hours and sticking to them can help you in multiple ways. If you choose your day to end at 5:30 pm, you have a light at the end of the tunnel. You can start wrapping up your day with a review of the work you’ve done that day 15 minutes before you call it day. Set an alarm on your phone to reoccur every day at your end time to remind it’s time to walk away.
Clean up your workspace
- Many editors have agreed that a clean workspace helps them to focus and get in the zone to finish their edits and work. It’s easy to accumulate junk throughout the day (that chocolate wrapper you wished you hadn’t eaten at 2 pm to help pick you up) only to leave it for the next morning to clean through. Keeping tidy throughout the day helps to clean up at the end for a sense of completion to the day and a better start to the next.
Find something fun to look forward to
- Some restaurants are opening up again so a happy hour with a friend could now easily be something to look forward to on the schedule. However, you’re still limiting your time out in public, a fun happy hour at home to shift gears into night time could do just the trick. Here are my go-to happy hours at home!
Get outside
- Whatever the weather is like, get outside when you’re finished with work! Staying home all day can sneak up on you and get you down. Even the homiest of home-bodies need to get outside for fresh air and vitamin D. Take a walk and use it as a time of reflection from the day.
Light a candle
- This seems to be the most trivial tip but there is something ceremonious about signifying the shift from workday to night by lighting a candle. When your work environment is the same as your home environment, you have to create some partition between the two sections of the day. Another great opportunity to reflect, but this time setting intentions for how you’d like to spend your evening.

Try and also take some time away from screens to shift the day into resting at home. Sure, you can pop on a show later or scroll Instagram, but give your mind some time to reset and your eyes a break from the blue light. And although these tips have been crafted for people primarily working from home, anyone can use these ideas to end the workday well, wherever it may be and whatever time it may end.

5 Ways to End Your Workday From Home on a Happy Note