Avoiding Burnout as a Remote Manager

Remote work can indeed be beautiful. It allows for a certain degree of flexibility that could lead to workers doing their best work.

However, most people that work remotely tend to work more hours, especially those leading or managing teams. This most likely happens due to the inability to separate the personal from the professional life since professional life happens at home. 

If you are not able to stop yourself from working too much, it can quickly lead to burnout.

What is the best way to balance your remote managerial work with your personal life? In this post, we explore some of the ways you, as a manager, can avoid burning out at work. These tips can apply to you even if you are managing a more traditional, in-office team since we are all affected by today's always-connected world.

Have a Routine and Stick to It

The first thing you should do is establish a routine for your workday. By having a set of predetermined tasks you need to do before and after work, with time, you will signal your brain that work time is starting and ending. 

It would be best if you keep office hours as that both ensure you are disciplined about your work time and teaches your employees when you are available so that they do not involve you with work outside of work hours. 

It can also be helpful when working on collaborative projects. When you and your employees know when someone is at work, it is far easier to organize a time when everyone can work together.

Create Stress-Free Work Routines

As a manager, you likely have a lot on your plate every day. Between multiple meetings, reviews, and your tasks, your schedule is full. Working in such an over-engaged in a high-pressure environment can burn you out.

To prevent burnout from happening to you, you should focus your time only on the most critical projects and tasks. If possible, delegate the rest of what you have to do to your team. 

Managers also sometimes struggle with splitting their time between their tasks and helping out their employees. While it is your job to do both, it is likely that you cannot do them both at the same time with the same energy. 

Instead, try setting aside an hour or two every workday and use those hours to mentor your employees and help them out with their tasks. They will appreciate your full focus and attention, and you will feel better. Of course, if they ask for your help outside of these hours and it is something truly urgent, you should help them with, but make sure that it does not last for too long.

Work From a Home Office

If you are feeling uncomfortable while working, it can lead to frustration, stress, and eventually burnout. To avoid this from happening, try to design a dedicated space that you can use for work. A full-fledged home office would be great, but just a corner of your room is sufficient.

Do not work from your bed. While it may seem that working while lying down in bed is ideal, that is far from the truth. Working from your bad is not only bad for your posture but your mind as well. If you work from your bed, you will not be able to distinguish between rest and work, and your brain is likely to associate your bed with work time.

Be on Top of Everyone's Work

As a manager, it is expected that you are always on top of your work. However, sometimes that is not easy with all the work you have to do in a day. To ensure that you always know what you and your employees are doing, you need to monitor employees working from home. To monitor employees working from home, you can use an employee monitoring tool like Insightful. With Insightful, you can see in real-time what all your employees are doing and what apps and websites they are visiting, wherever they are located.

If you monitor employees working from home, you are likely to reduce your stress that usually comes from not knowing and not meeting expectations, which sometimes happens with remote work. By having an overview of what your employees are doing, you will know what to expect from employees and what they will deliver in the end. This is easily achievable by including remote team management software into your everyday workflow.

Stay Connected

One of the biggest disadvantages of working remotely is the lack of human touch. This can especially be hard if you are managing people. 

It would be best if you stay connected with your colleagues. By being involved more with their lives, you will build a much more reliable connection, and that will both help you more easily manage them and avoid the feelings of burnout.

Remote work tends to be lonely. Because of that, make sure you stay connected with your friends outside of work. Get out of the house as much as you can, and spend time with people. It will help clear your mind and distract you from your professional life's context.

Take Breaks and Go on Vacation

Regular breaks and vacation can go a long way in helping prevent burnout. If it is possible, make sure to take frequent breaks away from work. If you have the power, make sure your employees take a break regularly to avoid burnout. 

An easy way to refresh your mind is to split your day into two parts. Take a walk or a cycle in the middle of the day. It will give your body much-needed movement and your mind time to work, which you probably need if you have spent all your morning working.

Taking time off work and going on vacation is essential. However, fewer people these days take vacations, especially in a remote work environment. Remote workers often do not take vacations because they can travel while working, because, as we all know it, working remotely allows you to work wherever you are. However, just because you can work from the beach, you are still working. 

Breaking away from work and everything related to your work, like task lists, emails, and attending meetings, is essential for your well-being, even if you are working remotely. Taking regular vacations encourages creativity and allows you to gain a different perspective on things. It encourages you to spend quality time with your loved ones, and it will enable you to connect with yourself. All of these reasons can help you avoid burnout.

If you worry that your employees will not work while you are on vacation, make sure to read this post where we explore how to ensure that the work in your company still gets done while you are away.

Final Thoughts

By separating your work from your home life, by being attentive and taking care of yourself, you can avoid feeling burnout from work. Time keeping software can help you maintain this balance.

If you create a routine for yourself and stick to it, find a corner in your house from which you can work, make sure you stay on top of everyone's work, and build non-work connections with people, remote work will likely be a lovely experience for you.